- IC 5146 Cocoon Nebula
The Cocoon Nebula is an emission nebula located along the eastern side of the constellation Cygnus. It contains the open cluster Collinder 470. The nebula is relatively large (12 arc-min across) but fairly dim (visual magnitude 10). The nebula and cluster are located at a distance of around 3300 LY. The actual diameter of the nebula is around 15 LY. The nebula is lit primarily by the magnitude 9.78 central star TYC 3609-1446-1, which is thought to have formed around 100,000 years ago. Visually, the nebula and cluster are surrounded by the dark nebula Barnard 168 which, in larger images, snakes off to the east with a length of about 2 degrees. Several dark nebular features can be seen on the face of the brighter emission nebula.
This is an object for which I acquired narrow-band Hα and Hβ images in addition to broad-band red, green and blue images. The color composite image shown above was produced from hydrid red, green and blue images created by combining the broad-band red, green and blue images with the narrow-band Hα and Hβ images.
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