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 venerable Meade 12"LX200, using the 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 7 1/2 minutes each for Luminance and 10 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 --

Lum 450s: 29 subs (3.63 hr) on Aug 10th and Aug 12th.

Lum 60s: 21 subs (0.35 hr) on Aug 15th.

Red 600s: 14 subs (2.33 hr) on Aug 10th and Aug 15th.

Red 60s: 21 subs (0.35 hr) on Aug 15th.

Green 600s: 15 subs (2.50 hr) on Aug 10th and Aug 15th.

Green 60s: 21 subs (0.35 hr) on Aug 15th.

Blue 600s: 14 subs (2.33 hr) on Aug 10th, Aug 13th and Aug 15th.

Blue 60s: 21 subs (0.35 hr) on Aug 15th.

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 up, 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.

My images had been suffering from optical ghosts/reflections that could not be fully processed out. This was commented on in my M16 Eagle Nebula image. The good folks at Starizona had me send them the SCT Corrector and found that one of the lenses did not have proper coating. However, while M17 Omega came out well, you can definitely see the green reflection in this image. Guess I'm stuck with it for wide band images.