Cocoon Nebula

Distance: 10 Million Light Years

The Cocoon Nebula is a rather bright, but very small region in our milkyway with an active region of star formation. Its emission is mainly H-alpha. Furthermore, with longer integrations from darker skies, a blue reflection nebula can be uncovered around the cocoon, as well as a long tail of dark nebula dusts. Another very distinct and unique feature of the cocoon nebula is very faint galactic cirrus clouds which emit H-alpha. A narrowband filter is required for these features to show up! This object is quite normally sized. To fit the entire tail (as seen in the image below), roughly 500mm focallength on an apsc sensor or 800mm on a full frame sensor are required! For a close up of only the cocoon, over 1000mm of focallength and good seeing is needed! https://cdn.astrobin.com/thumbs/p9GXOsqwsw1W_16536x0_bY2EQU70.jpg