THE FIGHTING DRAGONS OF ARA
- NGC6188, Edge Nebula
- Deep sky 1000mm LRGBHOO
- Constellation Ara the Altar

The colors in NGC 6188 are due to the presence of various chemical elements in the gas, such as hydrogen, oxygen, and sulfur. The energetic radiation from the young stars in this beautiful nebula excites these elements and causes them to glow with different colors. This creates an impressive visual spectacle, in my opinion one of the most beautiful and exciting nebulae, clearly one of my favorite nebulae, not only because of the cool name :-) I mean hello?! THE FIGHTING DRAGONS OF THE ALTAR?? This is the GOT of astronomy - bang, isn't it? :-)

NGC 6188, or the Edge Nebula, is a large H-II region in the constellation of Ara, located in the southern hemisphere. It is a vibrant and colorful assemblage of gas and dust, made to glow by intense radiation from young, hot stars. The H-II region is approximately 4,000 light-years from Earth and spans an area of about 200 light-years. It is part of a larger star-forming region that also includes open star cluster NGC 6193. The energetic radiation from the young stars causes the surrounding gas to become ionized, resulting in the characteristic glowing clouds and filaments. A stunning example of how new stars are formed and how gas and dust interact in the Universe. Exploring NGC 6188 and similar H-II regions is helping to deepen our understanding of star formation and galaxy evolution.

Telescope: Skywatcher Quattro 254mm f/4, 1000mm
Camera: SBIG ST 8300M Camera, Chroma filter set
Lights: 6xLuminance per 240s, / 13xRed/9xGreen/8xBlue per 240s, / 41xhAlpha/47xOIII per 300s Bin1x1
Location: Brazil (Phoenix-Pandora Observatory)
Acquired image set taken by Insight Telescope, Image Processing - Thomas ArtOfPix Großschmidt

Image editing:
Mainly Pixinsight, Photoshop, Lightroom, GraXpert, BTX Blur Terminator, Noise Terminator, Star X Terminator