Integrated-Flux Nebula—or is it? Near Polaris

OTA: FSQ 106ED
Camera: FLI PL16083
Observatory: Telescope Live, SPA-1

Exposures:
R:  23
G:  23
B:  22
Total Exposure time used about 9 hours
Image Width: 302 arcminutes

Processing: PixInsight, Topaz Studio2, Luminar NEO, custom scripts for subframe weighting and star replacement

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that the Integrated-Flux Nebula (IFN) is an interstellar cloud that surrounds our local region of the galaxy…a bubble of sorts. The bright star with the blue halo is Polaris. It and several other stars spawned these blue reflection nebulae, although, in Polaris's case, the blue halo is also caused by the dispersion of the light in the telescope optics.

The subframes were captured in both 300s and 600s exposures, presumably to allow the creation of a "high-dynamic-range" image, which would suppress the glare from Polaris. I blended the images using PixelMath, a minor improvement over using the 600s images alone. But a distracting level of glow from Polaris prevailed against my best effort. But I still like the image and wish there was data with more extensive field  coverage.

Here's my problem: Usually, the IFN is portrayed as gray-brown. This image shows a colorful nebula, not the drab one common to the IFN. Or is this not the IFN but a nebula being lit by Polaris? Notice the blue halo near the left and bottom of the image that centers on Polaris. The blue may be an artifact of the optics, but the nebula favors orange and pink tints within it and has different hues outside of the halo. This indicates illumination by Polaris and argues against it being a portion of the integrated flux. Unfortunately, this image has an insufficient fov (incredible!) to determine whether the nebula's color extends beyond the local region surrounding Polaris or not, whether it is lit by Polaris or not. I will attempt to capture a wider area when our monsoons abate.

Alex Woronow