The Crescent Nebula, NGC 6888, is 5000 light years away. Captured in 7.5 hours of exposure on 2024-06-17 & 23 under a Bortle 7 sky in Austin, Texas.

At its center is a heavy metal Wolf-Rayet star, shedding its outer layers at high velocity to collide with earlier slower moving stellar wind. This results in both inward and outward moving shock waves and the spectacularly complex structure we see here.

WO RedCat 250/51mm telescope, L-Ultimate dual NB filter, ASI533 MC camera, ASIAIR Plus controller, SW AZ-EQ5 mount.

Processed in PixInsight, 90 5' exposures w darks, drizzle stacked, Auto DBE, then SPCC, RC-Astro Noise/Blur/StarXTerminator plugins, Star Stretch, and Affinity Photo final exp and crop