This is a very fascinating Cepheid variable star in our Milky Way! This cool star brightens and dims over a six week cycle! Not sure which part of the cycle this image is taken on though! Its visual magnitude changes from 6.52 at maximum to 7.67 at minimum.
It is one of the brightest Cepheid’s and is 10 times more massive than our sun and 200 times the size. It shines at a brightness 15,000 times more than that of our sun.
What is unusual is the star is surrounded by thick dark clouds of dust allowing what is referred to as a light echo to be shown. The nebula around RS Puppis is effectively a reflection nebula the brightness of which varies as RS Puppis pulses light outwards.Imaged in LRGB on the Planewave CDK 700 and Lum on the CDK1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.Image acquisition and preprocessing: Mike Selby
Processed by me using Pixinsight and Photoshop.
My friend @wsg has a wider field view with some cool nebulosity on the left at
https://www.astrobin.com/ifppns/
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