A fun object and a great pre/post learning experience, to the extent that it's a photogenic object to begin with. This object is unique as it represents an open star cluster, an emission nebula (ionized gas from nearby hot stars in red), a reflection nebula (clouds of dust being illuminated by nearby stars, i.e. the blue stuff) , and a dark nebula (dense molecular clouds that cause dark structures in the other nebulas).
In framing and post I tried to emphasize the trail of stars, including the open cluster M21, that are seemingly "left behind" this object. I was initially put off by the color balance of all the cosmic dust throughout the image, but now it has grown on me and I couldn't do without it. Funny, that. As always thanks to
@Adam Block for his instructional
videos, which I keep returning to for insights and techniques, and countless other resources.
This is roughly 30 hours of LRGB Data equally split between the L (60-90s exposures) and RGB (240-360s) summed.
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