IC5146 - Cocoon Nebula Nebula - June 2022
Planewave CDK 12.5 - AIS6200MM
A-P 1100 GTO AE, Antlia Pro 3nm NB filters
H,S,O: (23,18,12 x 300s exposures, Bin 2, Gain 200) Total Integration Time = 4.5 hours
This is The Cocoon Nebula, a bright stellar nursary in Cygnus that contains a cluster that includes a very young bright star (<100,000 years). This nebula is thought responsible for the creation of over 200 stars so far.
The Nebula is most often imaged with broadband colour filters, however, I wanted to see if I could capture a decent image, at least of the emission part of the nebula, in narrowband, with not a fast telescope (f/8), in a short night near the time of the solstice < 5hrs. I also wanted to test how my camera would do under high gain of 200.
THe result is that the while the narrowband filters were able to pick up a lot of detail in the emission part of the nebula, the reflection parts are quite dim. There is some dim horizontal lines in the background that show that I am pushing the limit of the read noise that can be calibrated out.
The result here is presented as an SHO image in the Hubble pallette, which is always fun to do because you are never quite sure what colours will show up until you are done.