This narrowband portrait captures the Crescent Nebula and the elusive Soap Bubble Nebula suspended in the rich emission fields of Cygnus. The Crescent forms where a fast stellar wind from its Wolf Rayet star collides with slower material ejected in an earlier phase, sculpting a glowing shell of ionized hydrogen and oxygen. Nearby, the faint Soap Bubble reveals a nearly perfect sphere, a rare planetary nebula whose razor thin shell becomes visible only under deep integration.

Captured with the remote dual FF130 setup at Pixelskies in Southern Spain, this dataset blends contributions from both telescopes to resolve the intricate shock fronts and delicate filaments. The combination of careful acquisition by Jamie and Phil, meticulous pre-processing by Phil, and refined post-processing by Jamie brings forward subtle structures that are often hidden, including the Soap Bubble’s extremely low surface brightness envelope floating within the surrounding HII region.

The Cocoon Nebula (IC 5146) floats about 4,000 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, a luminous nursery where new stars emerge from clouds of gas and dust. At its core, a bright young star illuminates the surrounding hydrogen, oxygen, and dust, forming the radiant cocoon that gives the nebula its name.

This extraordinary four-panel mosaic spans over 224 hours of total integration time, revealing both the glowing core and the long, dark molecular filaments that stretch westward like a cosmic river. Captured in LRGB and H-alpha, the image traces the full life cycle of interstellar matter, dense dust lanes collapsing into stars and their radiation sculpting the surrounding nebula into intricate, colorful forms.