Bilbo Baggins said something like there hasn't been a dragon around here for over 1000 years, that's because they went looking for swans. The Flying Dragon Nebula or Sh2-114 is located in the constellation Cygnus (the Swan) at an unknown distance which is surprising to me. It is a very faint nebula in an extremely rich star field which is probably why it is not imaged as much as other objects in the vicinity. Similar regions typically are result from supernova, however, no remnants have been detected so the cause remains unclear.
I first saw an image of this two years ago and loved the look but I wanted to wait until I had better equipment. One of my favorite parts is the swirling filamentous clouds that make up the dragon. The dragon sits in a surprisingly dense star field which is bittersweet as love stars, however, they make processing the nebula quite difficult. I did a lot of star reduction in PI but did not use Starnet this time. The stars turned out nice and colorful after getting them to a manageable level.
Dates: 7-31-20, 8-4-20, 8-5-20, 8-18-20, 8-19-20, 8-20-20
https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/http://astroquest1.blogspot.com/http://youtube.com/c/AstroQuest1
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