Located in the Cygnus complex the Butterfly nebula (IC1318) is a single giant HII cloud bisected by a thick obscuring dust lane that gives the symmetry from which its popular names derives. The image shows just one wing of the butterfly designated IC1318 C which is approximately 50 light years across. We are looking deep into the Orion arm of our galaxy in this direction at a distance of 5,000 light years. The image was created by assigning the SII, Ha and OIII data respectively to Red, Green and Blue and then applying a colour map to differentiate the SII and OIII areas from the dominant hydrogen.
Right ascension: 20h 29m 06s | Declination: +39° 58′ 00″ | Distance: 5,000 Light Years
Field of view: 57 x 38 arcmin
Camera: SBIG ST-10XME
Telescope: William Optics Megrez 120 F/7.5
Guiding: Starlight Xpress Active Optics (SXV-AO-LF) unit
Filters: Astrodon Ha (3nm), OIII (3nm), SII (3nm)
Exposures: Ha 20 x 30 min; OIII 20 x 30 min; SII 20 x 30 min
Total exposure: 30 hours
Image composition: Colour Mapped Narrowband SII:Ha:OIII
Scale: 1.56 arcsec/pixel
Image acquired: over 16 nights between May-July 2013 from Bristol (UK)
Image capture with MaxIm DL, FocusMax, ACP; Image processed with MaxIm DL, Photoshop CS4 (Hubble Palette Colour Mapping following method by Bob Franke)