Sh2-86 is an extended HII region in the constellation Vulpecula, about 3 degrees from the Dumbbell Nebula (M27), with an apparent diameter of about 40 arc-min. The nebula is excited by the open cluster NGC 6823, which is part of the Vulpecula OB1 association. OB class stars are the hottest and most massive stars in the main sequence. They are blue-white in color, with a B-V index close to zero. Bellatrix and Spica are examples of B class stars, the C star in Orion's Trapezium is an example of an O class star.  The age of many of the stars in the NGC 6823 cluster has been estimated at 2 to 7 million years old.

This region in Vulpecula is prominent in infrared images of thermal dust emissions, as well as radio and the optical. In the optical, Sh2-86 exhibits pillar-like structures pointing towards NGC 6823, emission and reflection nebulae (NGC 6820), as well as filamentary structures. The three main pillars associated with the young star cluster NGC 6823 have been named VulP12-13-14 and are located northeast of NGC 6823. They were first studied and named by Chapin et al (2008) with the Balloon-borne Large-Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) and are classified as high-mass protostellar objects. They are illuminated by the most massive star in NGC 6823, O7 V((f)) with mass ~40 solar masses.

Smaller young protostellar objects have been identified and are also visible in the image. Most prominently, two Harbig-Haro objects HH 365 and HH 165 are highlighted in the platesolved image. HH 165 is split into two separate components, the core of the HH object and a jet.  Bok globules are also scattered throughout the image of this star-forming region.

The data was acquired from my backyard in 2021 and 2022 and processed in Pixinsight and Photoshop. I used roughly 71 hours of data out of the 88 hours of data collected overall to exclude subexposures overly corrupted by clouds, light gradients, or poor seeing. To create the SHO palette, I tried a slightly different approach to the usual SHO channel assignment to avoid having to process out the overwhelming green Ha emissions. I assigned the 3 emission line signals to red (SII), gold (Ha), and blue (OIII) in Photoshop using Hue/Saturation layers with Clipping Masks, and then applied much smaller aesthetic changes to the color palette than typical with a conventional SHO->RGB mapping.

I hope you enjoy this image!

References:

Billot et al, "Young Stellar Objects and Triggered Star Formation in the Vulpecula OB Association", Astroph. J. 712:797 (2010) https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0004-637X/712/2/797/pdf
Chapin et al, "The Balloon-Borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) 2005: A 4 deg^2 Galactic Plane Survey in Vulpecula (l=59 deg)", Astroph. J. 681:428 (2008) https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/588544/pdf
Star Formation Region Avedisova 878 (Catalog of Star-Forming Regions in the Galaxy - Avedisova, Astronomy Reports 46, March 2002) http://galaxymap.org/avedisova/html/878.html