Click here for an annotated version of this target.
IC 5146, also known as the Cocoon Nebula, is a reflection/emission nebula in Cygnus’s constellation. IC5146 is a stellar nursery that is an active star-forming region.
There is a dark nebula B168 that surrounds the cluster and forms a tail behind the Cocoon. IC5146 is about 4000 light-years away and was first discovered by Thomas Espin in 1899
This was captured at a quarter moon using an Optolong L-Pro 2″ filter. I had to throw out an hour of data because of N.I.N.A did not recenter the image after a meridian flip, and the target was out of the field of view.
Processing Info
I went through the Blink process in PixInisght and found the best 18 frames. Stacked them using Batch Preprocessing.
The following processes were performed in PixInsight:
- Dynamic Crop
- Dynamic Background Extraction
- Automatic Background Extraction
- Background Neutralization
- Photometric Color Calibration
- Histogram Transformation
- Curves Transformation
- Morphological Transformation
- MultiScale Linear Transform
- HDR Multiscale Transform
Once I found what I liked, I saved the files, went to Photoshop, and ran Topaz AI DeNoise. This is an amazing plugin that works like magic.
If anyone is curious, here are the full-res versions of the images.
Here you can see the area of the sky in Cygnus imaged.
Acquisition Data
- Telescope: Explore Scientific ED127 Air-Spaced Triplet Apochromatic Refractor
- Camera: ASI071MC Pro
- Guide Scope: Orion ST80
- Guide Camera: ASI290MM Mini. Dithering every image at 1 pixel each time.
- Mount: iOptron CEM60
- Software: NINA for image acquisition. PixInsight is used for stacking and editing. Imported to Photoshop for final touchup and watermarking.
- Other Accessories: AstroZap Dew Heater, Explore Scientific 2″ Field Flattener, MoonLite CFL 2.5″ Focuser, High Res Stepper Motor, V3 Controller, Pegasus Astro Power Box Advance
- Filters: Optolong L-Pro 2″
- Exposure Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes (18 X 300 seconds). Gain 90, -10°C bin 1×1
- Exposure Start: 23:09
- Date: July 14, 2020
- Location: Voorhees State Park, NJ, United States
- GPS Coordinates: Lat. 40.68187, Long. -74.89797
- Temperature: 74°F/23.3°C
- Bortle Dark-Sky Scale: 4
- Astrometry.net job: 3814124
- Avg. Moon age: 23.5 Days
- Avg. Moon phase: 35.78%
- RA center: 21h 53′ 24″
- DEC center: +47° 15′ 50″
- Orientation: 272.693 degrees
- Field radius: 0.836 degrees
- Magnitude: 7.2
- Resolution: 3720 x 2330
