Bright and Dark Clouds in Westerhout 5

[wimvb]

Westerhout 5, if you didn't already know it, is the Soul Nebula. So, this image is all about the dark and bright sides of the Soul.

I captured the data for this image during a gap in the clouds yesterday evening. With a near full moon high in the sky, and snow on the ground, conditions were far from perfect. Still, 4 hours of H-alpha was enough to produce this image.

In order to enhance the drama in the image, I removed the stars and used tone mapping to get rid of the cold black and white.

All processing was done in PixInsight

(this image is best viewed  on a computer screen. Click on the image to open the full size version)

Edited December 27, 2023 by wimvb