Flying Dragon Nebula

SH2-114, also known as the “Flying Dragon Nebula,” is a very faint and perhaps not that commonly imaged HII emission nebula in the constellation of Cygnus. This large curving filamentary structure together with the nearby bubble structure cloud SH2-113 appears to be part of a supernova, but no supernova remnant has yet been identified as the source. The complex structures are more likely the result of winds from massive hot stars interacting with the magnetic fields in the interstellar medium.

An HII region is a region of interstellar atomic hydrogen that is ionized, and it is typically in a molecular cloud of partially ionized gas in which star formation has recently taken place. The gas is ionized by the giant amount of ultraviolet light emitted by the blue stars created in the region. The regions may appear in any shape because the stars and gas distributed within them is irregular, but they often appear clumpy or filamentary, sometimes showing intricate shapes. HII regions may give birth to thousands of stars over a period of several million years. In the end, supernova explosions and strong stellar winds from the most massive stars disperse the gases of the HII region, leaving a cluster of stars which have formed.

Directly above the right wing you can see a planetary nebula as a bright red spot. This is cataloged as Kronberger (Kn) 26, and it is a bipolar emission nebula. In the lower right corner, you can see a bright blue supergiant star called Sigma Cygni. The star is over 50 000 times brighter than the Sun and is located about 3 300 light years from Earth. The star is enriched in helium, and has extremely high concentrations of nitrogen, calcium, cerium, and europium, while carbon and aluminum are depleted relative to the Sun. There seem to be no calculated distance from SH2-114 to Earth, but I found one reference noting between 3 520 and 4 175 light years from Earth.

Data for this image was gathered 2024-09-06, 2024-09-11, and 2024-09-14.
Data for this image: 12x300s S-II, 158x300s Ha, 14x300s O-III.
Total number of exposures 184 with a total integration time of 15,3 hours.
Processing: PixInsight with HA palette with SHO stars.
Equipment: SkyWatcher EvoStar 80ED Pro (0,85x FR/FF) and ZWO ASI294MM Pro on SkyWatcher HEQ5 Pro with SkyWatcher EvoGuide 50ED and ZWO ASI120MM Mini. ZWO SII, Ha, and OIII filters.
Location: 63 degrees north with a bortle 4 sky.