Cocoon Nebula, IC5146

Sep 2022

Imaging: TS80 apo, ZWO ASI533 (100 gain, 0C), Neodymium
Subs: 735x60s (12h), darks, flats, and darkflats
Software: NINA, Phd2, PixInsight, NoiseXT, StarXT

(Additional notes below)

Gallery

Notes

This is the Cocoon Nebula which is an emission and reflection nebula in the Constellation Cygnus. According to Wikipedia, it is a stellar nursery where star formation is ongoing. There are apparently hundreds of young stellar objects in this nebula. The dark brownish trail to the lower left of the Cocoon is part of a dark nebula called Barnard 168. Dark nebula are (surprise) not illuminated so one typically needs very dark skies to capture. It is something surprising that it shows at all in this picture from my backyard.

I captured the images for this image over 4 nights starting in early September. As the summary indicates, it took over 700 images to put this together, and it was one where the pre-processing took overnight on a relatively fast computer. Apart from the Cocoon itself, what I like is that this is in the direction of a tremendous star field. The volume and variety of the stars here is incredible to me.