NGC6888 Crescent Nebula

DETAILS: Imaged with the ST-10XME CCD camera with autoguiding chip with the LX200 10" at f5.2 using a Hutech LPS filter, CFW-8, and guided by the AO-7 adaptive optics. LRGB: 80:24:24:32 min. Processed, aligned and color combined using MaxIm DL. More data is needed.

COMMENTARY: The Crescent Nebula is a rapidly expanding shell of gas surrounding a dying star. It formed about 250,000 years ago as a central Wolf-Rayet star (WR 136) and began to shed its outer envelopes in a powerful stellar wind, expelling the equivalent of our Solar System sun's mass every 10,000 years. The strong stellar winds impact the surrounding interstellar gases creating shock fronts. Wolf-Rayet stars are huffing/puffing furnaces spewing huge amounts of sooty gases into the surrounding space. This particular star will probably go supernova sometime in the next million years or so. NGC 6888 lies about 4,700 light-years distant in the Constellation Cygnus.