Last night the sky was perfect around midnight and I was imaging very well. I thought I could go for a long time, but by 1:30 the moon was up and before long my subs were starting to get washed out. I could have kept going but the magic dark hour was gone so I called it a night. My second sub and several others had satellites crossing the five minute exposures, but the stacking program nixed that data I hope. After tossing a few low scoring frames I put together one hour twenty minutes integrated time for this result. For my setup and Photoshop skill level I am happy with the final cropped result.
This is known as the Cocoon Nebula, which combines a star cluster, an emission nebula, a reflection nebula, and the vertical “tail” of a dark nebula. Surprising how short the dark time was last night before the moonrise started to dilute the imaging. One hour twenty minutes total image time.
