Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cygnus (Cyg)  ·  Contains:  Cocoon nebula  ·  IC 5146
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IC5146 Cocoon Nebula, niteman1946
IC5146 Cocoon Nebula
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IC5146 Cocoon Nebula

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
IC5146 Cocoon Nebula, niteman1946
IC5146 Cocoon Nebula
Powered byPixInsight

IC5146 Cocoon Nebula

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Description

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].

CAPTURE Information:

The image was captured with the iOptron CEM120 mount , the venerable Meade 12"LX200 SCT, and my Atik 383L+ m CCD at F7.16 (2182mm FL). Image subs were taken through Astronomik's narrowband filter Ha, along with broadband filters L, R, G and B. Subs were done at 1x1 bin, -10C, at 10 minutes for Ha and Luminance; and 5 minutes for R, G and B.

IMAGE information -- 2019:

Ha: 18 subs (3.00hr) on July 16th.

Lum: 35 subs (5.83hr) on Jun 30th, Jul 14th.

Red: 20 subs (1.67hr) on July 15 and 16th.

Green: 20 subs (1.67hr) on July 15.

Blue: 20 subs (1.67hr) on July 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 Ha images were combined with the RED subs to make the final red color.

North is to the right (I think), and this is a slight crop due to the misalignment accumulation from so many different filters and times.

COMMENTS:

I am fairly pleased with the outcome. I used the technique presented on Harry's Astroshed site for adding the Halpha images to the red images. You can see in the finished product where the Hydrogen Alpha features (nebula center) are prominent in red. The Ha really boosts the red. The stars unfortunately have a tinge of green but don't look too bad.

I see that I also did this target in 2018 (without the Ha contribution). But was so disappointed with the results that I did not post it.

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IC5146 Cocoon Nebula, niteman1946