The Picture of the Week this time is the very busy Sadr region of Cygnus. This image was captured with the Canon 200mm prime lenses and the ASI 2600MC Pro CMOS cameras. I had originally taken something like 3 and a half hours of UV/IR cut filtered data and I must admit the result was pretty unimpressive. I subsequently got 4-hours of Optolong L-Enhance filtered data and that really brought all the H-alpha out! However, the Optolong filter lets through H-alpha and OIII and the little blue nebula top centre (NGC6914) is a reflection (broadband blue) nebula, so the Optolong filter cut out most of the blue in this spectacular little nebula (I call NGC6914 a little patch of blue in an ocean of red). However, adding in the UV/IR cut filtered data, plus some stand alone NGC6914 data taken on the Sky90 array with the M26C OSC CCDs, I was able to bring back some of the missing blue in NGC6914.
So what do we see in this image? Dead centre is bright star Sadr which is sitting within the Butterfly nebula. Top just left of centre is the blue reflection nebula NGC6914. Lower right of Sadr is the Crescent nebula, and below Sadr on the same level as the Crescent nebula is the open cluster of stars M29. How M29 (the Cooling Tower) could ever be mistaken for a comet I’ll never know. The bright nebula lower left I did identify at some point in the past, but today I’ve forgotten what it is designated. If anyone out there knows please give an answer in the comments.
