Star PV Cep

This image was obtained with the wide-field view of the Mosaic camera on the Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. PV Cep is the star embedded in the cloud of gas near the center of the image. It is a star in the process of forming. As it forms, it is also ejecting hot jets of gas, which can be seen as the gently curved, "S-shaped" line of red blobs of gas that extend to the upper-right and lower-left of PV Cep. The V-shaped cone of light just above PV Cep is red on the right side because the H-alpha data for this image was obtained on two nights over a year apart (June 10th, 2010 and September 16th, 2011). During that time, the illumination of the cone of light by PV Cep changed dramatically. The image was generated with B (blue), V (green), I (orange) and Hydrogen-Alpha (red) filters. In this image, north is up, and east is to the left.