This is a very busy part of our northern night sky.
Cygnus, the swan constellation, hosts huge star fields and hydrogen gas clouds with dark nebula acting as structures. This image is focused on a complex of two blue reflection nebulae, vdB 132 and vdB 131.
They are within the Hii region cataloged as NGC6914. The nebulae are located between the bright stars Deneb and Sadr. The nebulae are part of a larger atomic hydrogen cloud that glows red due to ultraviolet radiation from young, hot stars. NGC 6914 is located approximately 6,000 light-years away.
Reflection nebulae are clouds of interstellar dust that reflect the light of nearby stars. The energy from the stars is not enough to ionize the gas in the nebula, but it is enough to make the dust visible.
Imaged with a GSO RC8 and ASI071MC Pro riding an Eq6r Pro. 14.5 hours of 5 minute exposures. Image acquisition by APT and manually processed using Pixinsight.
