Instrument

12.5" RCOS @  ~f/9 (2880 mm fl) at 0.64 arcsec/pixel. Shown at 1.21 and 3.39 arcsec/pixel.

Mount

Paramount ME

Camera

SBIG STL-11000 w/ FW8 filter wheel, AstroDon Gen-2 Filters

Acquisition Data

7/20/2014 to 8/17/2014 Chino Valley, AZ... with CCDAutoPilot, CCD Commander & CCDSoft, AOL guided.

Exposure

Software & Processing Notes

• CCDSoft, CCDStack, PixInsight, Photoshop CS6 and Noel Carboni's actions.

• eXcalibrator v4.25 for (g:r) color balancing, using 17 stars from the SDSS-DR9 database.

• CCDBand-Aid to repair KAI-11000M vertical bars.

• CCDStack to calibrate, register, normalize, data reject, combine the sub exposures and create the Lum, Ha and RGB images.

• PixInsight processing includes the initial non-linear stretching with HistogramTransformation & MaskedStretch. LocalHistogramEqualization and HDRMultiscaleTransform were used to enhance the detail.

• PhotoShop to add Ha data to the Luminance and Red channels, create the LRGB and final touch-up.

• Noiseware 5, a PhotoShop plug-in.

Comment

The nebula is shown rotated 90° clockwise.
 

This remarkably beautiful nebula complex is in the constellation Cygnus, at a distance of 6000 light years. The two blue reflection nebulae, to the right, are cataloged as the vdB 132. To the left, and slightly lower, is the reflection nebula vdB 131. Together, with the surrounding emission nebula, they are cataloged as NGC 6914. The image also contains several cataloged bright and dark nebulae, and a few relatively rare yellow reflection nebulae.

The emission nebula is illuminated by the star cluster Cygnus OB2. The cluster contains about 100 class "O" and about 2500 class "B" stars. These stars are incredibly hot and bright, shining with a color similar to the blue–white of an arc welder..

For a much wider view, click here.