What you’re looking at is a starless edit of IC2944, an emission nebula in the Centaurus constellation, around 6500 light years from earth.
While I normally almost never do starless edits (they generally don’t appeal to me), I’m making an exception for this one. As part of my editing workflow, I always split nebulosity from star fields and edit them separately (what makes stars look their best doesn’t necessarily apply to nebulae and vice versa). In this case, the resulting nebula appealed to me so much, I decided to not put the stars back in.
So what is it that’s so interesting/appealing then? If you look closely at some of the larger structures in the image, you’ll be able to make out some fine detail/patterns. This is actually the result of gravitational and stellar radiation interactions within the system, shaping the interstellar gas/dust. You can compare it to wind sculpting dunes over time, just on a much larger scale.
Image acquisition details:22x900" HA
27x900" OIII
29x900" SII
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