The complex of red emission and dark dusty nebulas in Cygnus, with the bright Cygnus starcloud at bottom and the North America Nebula at top. At lower left are the arcs of the Veil Nebula. At centre is the IC 1318 nebula complex, aka the Butterfly. This is a stack of 20 x 2-minute exposures with the Canon RF 28-70mm lens at 70mm and wide open at f/2, taken as part of testing the lens. The lens was shooting though a URTH Night broadband light pollution rejection filter to reduce the green airglow present this night in a shoot from home. The camera was the Canon Ra at ISO 1250, and was on the Star Adventurer Mini tracker. All stacking, alignment and blending with Photoshop 2021.
Cygnus starcloud area taken Sept. 13, 2007 for stack of 4 x 4 minute exposures with 135mm L-series lens at f/2.8 and Canon 20Da camera at ISO 800. Inckudes IC 1318 and NGC 6888.
This is the central area of Cygnus and its bright Milky Way starcloud surrounded by red nebulosity. At left is the star Sadr (gamma Cygni) with the complex of nebulosity catalogued as IC 1318. At centre is the distinct Crescent Nebula, NGC 6888, a expanding nebula created by winds from a hot Wolf-Rayet star. At bottom left is the star cluster Messier 29, though looking a little lost in the rich starfields here. At top is the cluster IC 1311, looking more obvious than M29 but not observed visually and included in the NGC catalog. Odd. At far right are the large and loose star clusters NGC 6883 and NGC 6871, the latter an obvious binocular sight. To the left of Sadr is the small cluster NGC 6910. The dark nebulas B145 and LDN 862 are at right. The small emission nebula at bottom is Sharpless 2-104. This is a stack of 6 x 6-minute exposures at ISO 1600 without a filter, blended with 8 x 12-minute exposures at ISO 3200 taken through the Optolong L-Enhance dual narrowband filter to really bring out the faint nebulosity. All were with the William Optics RedCat 51mm f/5 astrograph and red-sensitive Canon EOS Ra full-frame mirrorless camera. Blending the two sets of exposures brings out the nebulosity while retaining the more natural colours in the stars and background sky. All stacked, aligned and blended in Photoshop CC. Taken from home in the wee hours of the morning of May 15/16, 2020 before dawn’s light began to wash out the sky.
