Better known to us in the Southern Hemisphere as the Dragons of Ara. This stellar nursery is a staple for Astro-photographers during the Winter Milky Way season and always produces stunning images. This image was processed with an HOO colour palette (Hydrogen Alpha, and Oxygen iii) to produce the stunning blues and yellows you see. While this might not be ‘true’ colour, its a better representation of its gaseous makeup than it would be without isolating certain wavelengths of light. This nebula is located in the Constellation of Ara and is only 4,000 Light years away. May as well be in your backyard with that distance. Astronomically speaking, its really close to us. It’s size spans around 300 light years so it’s certainly not small, but considered tiny when we think of how big galaxies can be.

This image is comprised of 180 shots of 120 seconds. Totalling 6 hours of integration time.

Shot with my ZWO Asi 2600mc Air camera, through my Askar 71f Telescope sitting atop a ZWO AM5N mount.

The filter used for this shot is the Askar C1.