This is a wide field shot of 2 degrees of sky in the Cygnus constellation. The highlight at lower left is IC 5146, an emission and reflection nebula 15 light years wide and located 4000 light years away. This nebula is nicknamed the Cocoon Nebula. Dark dust lanes wind their way throughout the nebula. Ionized hydrogen gas gives the nebula a reddish glow, with bluish dust-reflected starlight visible in some areas. The blue reflection nebula to the right of IC 5146 is vdB 147.
It looks as if the nebula is leaving a dark trail across the night sky. The trail is a long interstellar dust cloud - Barnard 168- which obscures the dense starfield behind it.
The nebula is the 19th entry in the
Caldwell Catalog of deep sky objects.
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