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This enigmatic
            object is half a degree across, and extends out past my frame
            field. None the less, the 12.5" reveals on the right side
            a spectacular shock front, where interstellar molecular clouds
            are colliding creating bright ridges of nebulosity. Of very special
            note on this image is the nebulas strong color gradient toward
            the central star, a very hot 6.9 magnitude type O6 star, which
            ionizes the nebulosity. Near this star, the nebulosity has great
            amounts of H-beta emissions, and thus the core is very magenta
            colored. As we extend outward from this star the coloration becomes
            pink, then deep red around the edges as the H-beta lines decrease
            in amplitude and H-alpha dominates. For a deep schmidt camera
            shot of this region click here.

            
Processing Notes:

            
Nearly every bright
            star in this image was badly bloomed, but the Starizona debloomer
            proved its worth once again in cleaning them up superbly. No
            noise reduction was used here, a good clean signal to noise was
            achieved by taking additional red exposures an incorporating
            them into the R data for the RGB color data and averaging them
            in to keep the ratios the same.

Instrument:  12.5" f/5 Home made Newtonian
Mount:  Astrophysics 1200 QMD
CCD Camera:  SBIG 10XME NABG with Enhanced Water Cooling
Guider: SBIG ST4  w/Lumicon Newt Easy Guider
Exposure:  LRGB = 120:80:20:20 (RGB unbinned )
AstroDon RGB Combine Ratio:  1: 1.05: 1.11
Location:  Payson, Arizona, Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing FWHM = 12 arcsec (Maxim DL - 10min subframe), Transparency 8/10
Outside Temperature:  19 F
CCD Temperature:  -30 C
Image Processing Tools: 
Maxim DL:  Calibration, deblooming (Starizona Debloomer), aligning, stacking
Gralaks Sigma:  Stacking
PixInsight:  Curves, Deconvolution
Photoshop CS2:  Curves, Color Correction, Gradient removal (Grad Xterminator), Cleanup

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