IC 5146: The Cocoon Nebula

IC 5146, widely known as the Cocoon Nebula, is a striking star-forming region located roughly 2,500 to 3,000 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. This image beautifully captures the glowing red emission of ionized hydrogen, illuminated by a newly formed central cluster of young, hot stars.

The bright core is intricately laced with dark, obscuring dust lanes that surround the nebula and stretch outward. Off to the side, a delicate blue reflection nebula is visible, created by starlight scattering off the surrounding interstellar dust particles.

IC 5146 is about 12 arcminutes across. The star that lights the nebula formed only about 100,000 years ago, and BD+46 3474, a B1 star of about 14 solar masses, is one of the most massive stars in the region. The dark nebula Barnard 168 forms a lane that surrounds the cluster and projects westward, and Spitzer and Chandra observations have identified hundreds of young stellar objects here.

Stacked and processed in PixInsight.