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.

Image Description and Details : The "Cocoon" nebula is aptly named: it is a magnificent nursery of stars, located about 3500 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. The "Cocoon" is home to a small open cluster (called "Collinder 470") that reveals about 20 stars. If it does not have the generous apparent dimensions of other well-known star-forming places, such as the Orion or Lagoon nebulae, the Cocoon nebula is nevertheless the seat of a sustained activity of star creation, the great majority of which are actually hidden behind the dark dust bands. The Cocoon Nebula also has a "bluish" zone around the edge of the ionized zone, which does not result from the same physical mechanism. In this zone, the light does not result from the absorption of stellar radiation by the gas and its re-emission at a lower energy (red zones), but from a simpler "reflection" of the light by the surrounding dust clouds. Takahashi TSA102 - AZEQ6 - Atik 16200MM Filters Baader LGRB-Ha (3,5nm) L : 62 x 900s bin1 Ha : 37 x 900s bin1 + 20 x 600s bin2 RGB : 108 x 300s bin2 Processing: Pixinsight & Photoshop (8 nuits) Corse & Fouras (17).

Copyright: Jean-Baptiste Auroux

Image Description and Details :

Accumulation: 23.3 hours
HaRGB
Telescope / shooting lens: SkyWatcher Quattro 8S
Shooting Cameras: ZWO Optical ASI 1600-MM COOLED
Mounts : Celestron CGEM 1100
Telescope / Lens Guides: Celestron GuideScope 80mm f / 7.5
Guide cameras: ZWO Optical ASI 290 MM
Focus Reducers: Tele Vue Paracorr Type-II
Filters: Astronomik LRGB 1.25 "Type IIc · Baader Planetarium H-alpha 1.25" CCD 7 nm


Copyright: Sviatoslav Lips