Hot gas in Cygnus

A wide field of swirling red and orange nebulosity fills most of the frame, crossed by darker dust lanes. A small, bright teal arc stands out near the upper left, and myriad faint stars are scattered across the scene.

Egidio Vergani, taken from Campo Cecina, Carrara, Italy

LBN 182, a nebula in Cygnus, surrounds the Wolf-Rayet star WR 134 some 6,000 light-years away; the star’s powerful wind is blowing a faint bubble into the surrounding gas, visible at upper left as a bright blue shock front. The imager took about 11 hours of exposure through with a 3.1-inch f/6 refractor and a dual-band Hα/OIII filter.