A dim nebula nestled in the constellation Cygnus amongst the Milky Way. Near the star Sadr, the middle star in the swan's body. "It is formed by the fast stellar wind from the Wolf-Rayet star WR 136 (HD 192163) colliding with and energizing the slower moving wind ejected by the star when it became a red giant around 400,000 years ago. The result of the collision is a shell and two shock waves, one moving outward and one moving inward." Wikipedia

The bright star in the center of the nebula is the Wolf-Rayet star. It is predicted that this star will end its life with a super nova. The star and nebula are about 5,000 light years from the earth.

This is the finished version of the next photo with 2.5 hours added.

This photo is a combination of exposures taken on Aug 23 and 30th, 2009. The total exposure time is 3.5 hours. All of the exposures were 6 minutes. 11 were at ISO800 without a filter. 15 were at ISO800 through an IDAS LPS filter, and 11 others were at ISO400 again with the IDAS filter.

Each set of exposures was calibrated with darks and flats in Deep Sky Stacker, I saved a calibrated version of each exposure. I then equalized the light with pixel math in AIP4WIN. The ISO400 photos were multiplied by 5.5 to match the ISO800 without a filter. The ISO800 with a filter were multiplied by 2.3. All were then stacked in Deep Sky Stacker.

Processing was done in PixInsight LE to balance the colors and save as a 16 bit Tiff. Final processing in Photoshop CS3. Levels, curves, sharpening, Noise Ninja and GradientXTerminator. Noel Carboni's tools were used to reduce the stars.

Details:

Telescope: William Optics FLT 110 Lite
Reducer: W/O Reducer/Flattener III
Mount: Celestron CGE
Guiding: PHD Guide, Meade DSI Pro, Orion ST-80
Camera: Canon Rebel XT modified by Hap Griffin
Filter: IDAS LPS for 26 of 37 exposures
Processing: Deep Space Stacker, AIP4WIN, PixInsight LE, Photoshop CS3, Noel Carboni's Tools, Noise Ninja, GradientXTerminator