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IC 5146, The Cocoon nebula

RobH

By RobH
in Imaging - Deep Sky

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RobH

RobH

Posted
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Hello all.

The Cocoon nebula, IC5146, is a combination of both emission and reflection nebulae, and is also surrounded by the dark nebula, Barnard 168, some of which is visible in this image.

It is about 4000 light years away and 15 light years across and is an active star forming region. The central star is thought to have formed 100,000 years ago.

The strong red colour is from the hydrogen gas cloud, which is being excited by the young hot stars within it and is glowing strongly in the HII part of the spectrum. These are also lighting up the surrounding molecular cloud, which is the reflection part of the nebula, and is the blue in the image.

The data for the image was gathered between June and early August, between work and clouds!

I initially got some OIII data for this, but it was very weak as the nebula doesn’t glow in this region, so I didn’t use it in this image, and gathered RGB data to add to the Ha that I’d first obtained.

It could really do with more data, especially blue, but having spent 2 months on it, I felt it was time to move on!

Imaged with a TMB152 @ F8, Atik 16HR and astronomic filters from Weymouth, Dorset.

Ha. 17 x 8 minutes

R. 22 x 6 minutes

G. 19 x 8 minutes

B. 15 x 8 minutes

Total imaging time. 9 hrs 46 minutes.

Cheers

Rob

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Catanonia

Catanonia

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WOW !!!!!!!!!!!!

That is amazing mate.

Makes me want to add another 4 hours onto my attempt.

Never seen the semi circle shape to the RHS of the image before. Makes you think there was an explosion bubble to the RHS of the nebula.

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steppenwolf

steppenwolf

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Lovely image, Rob - beautiful colours. I am relieved to see the 'mistiness' around the periphery as I always get this to some extent and wondered if it was something I was doing but to have confirmation that it really is there is good news! It hadn't occurred to me that this was one of those objects that has both emission and reflection regions but you have captured both beautifully.

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RobH

RobH

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Thanks for the kind words everyone :)

It's a relief to get a new image posted fiinally!!

I forgot to mention that the red channel is actually a 50/50 blend of red and Ha.

I shot some widefield of the region at the same time with my WO 80mm and I now need to do a combination of the two....the widefield wasn't centred but there's still quite a lot of the dark nebula showing, although I doubt I have enough data to get much colour into it.

The colour data was shot unbinned, and maybe next year I'll add to it as it should be possible to squeeze more from it, but there wasn't enough data with this image.

Cheers

Rob

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johnh

johnh

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Hello Rob wonderful image and to get that brown stuff at 2 O'Clock pos'n is so difficult, think I saw it in R.Crowman image. The stars are fairly colourless around Cocoon but you have really brought the colours out. 2 months spent justified by the result you've got - your TMB sees more than most.

JohnH.

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Well Rob if anyone anywhere has taken a Cocoon to compare with that one I have not seen it. The image is out of sight. I love the smoothness, the sense of layers of activity and the fact that you have brought to light things we don't normally even know are there. It has all the intensity that we find in the top american imagers' work without the... lack of understatement! A very British masterpiece, I think.

Olly

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RobH

RobH

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Hello all.

Noel Carboni pointed out that the star at the bottom left is an interesting coolour....I hadn't noticed but he's right, and it's down to a little too much star reduction in the blue layer...

so, here it is again, with the star fixed :)

Cheers

Rob

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