Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cygnus (Cyg)  ·  Contains:  Cocoon nebula  ·  IC 5146
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IC5146 Cocoon Nebula, niteman1946
IC5146 Cocoon Nebula
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IC5146 Cocoon Nebula

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
IC5146 Cocoon Nebula, niteman1946
IC5146 Cocoon Nebula
Powered byPixInsight

IC5146 Cocoon Nebula

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Description

Inside the Cocoon Nebula is a newly developing cluster of stars. Cataloged as IC 5146, the beautiful nebula is nearly 15 light-years wide, located some 4,000 light years away toward the northern constellation Cygnus. Like other star forming regions, it stands out in red, glowing, hydrogen gas excited by young, hot stars and blue, dust-reflected starlight at the edge of an otherwise invisible molecular cloud. In fact, the bright star near the center of this nebula is likely only a few hundred thousand years old, powering the nebular glow as it clears out a cavity in the molecular cloud's star forming dust and gas. [Source: APOD].

The image was captured with the new Celestron CGE Pro mount and the venerable Meade 12"LX200 SCT, using my Atik 383L+ mono at F7.16 (i.e. 2182mm FL). Astronomik's Luminance, Red, Green and Blue filters were used. Imaging subs were taken at 1x1 bin, -10C, and 10 minutes each for Luminance and 5 minutes each for R, G and B. Shorter subs of 60 seconds were each taken for L, R, G and B, and combined with the longer versions. This was done to broaden the dynamic range and minimize star center "blow-out".

Image information -- 2017

Image --

Lum 600s: 28 subs (5.50 hr) on Aug 9th and Aug 10th.

Lum 60s: 25 subs (0.42 hr) on Aug 10th.

Red 300s: 30 subs (2.50 hr) on Aug 4th and Aug 8th.

Red 60s: 24 subs (0.40 hr) on Aug 10th.

Green 300s: 31 subs (2.58 hr) on Aug 4th and Aug 8th.

Green 60s: 25 subs (0.42 hr) on Aug 10th.

Blue 300s: 29 subs (2.42 hr) on Aug 8th.

Blue 60s: 25 subs (0.42 hr) on Aug 10th.

Processing was done with PixInsight, following (for the most part) kayronjm's tutorial of Feb. 24th. Only L was used to develop the Luminance image. R, G and B were collected for the color mix. Narrow band filters were not used on this project.

North is to the right (I think), and this is a slight crop due to the misalignment accumulation from so many different filters and times.

I am fairly pleased with the outcome. This was again a good use of PI's HDR Composition tool for combining long and short exposures. Without the shorts, there were definite star center blow-outs.

I originally imaged this target in August 2015. This time is a complete redo with all new photons. Nothing from the 2015 effort was reused. The main reason for this is the camera orientation. In 2015 I was still on my Meade LX200 Classic fork mount. Now I'm using the Celestron CGE Pro and the camera orientation is 90 degrees rotated. Haven't quite figured that one out yet.

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IC5146 Cocoon Nebula, niteman1946