Cresent Nebula in Cygnus

Here is my shot of the very faint Crescent Nebula. 250,000 years ago the outer shell of a massive Wolf-Rayet star began to shed its outer atmosphere, creating this beautiful orange nebula of expanding gas as the star is gives off the mass of our Sun every 10,000 years. Along the edge of the image you can see the much larger emission nebulosity that is over 4700 light years away in the constellation Cygnus. The central star (WR136) will probably explode into a spectacular supernova within the next million years. Taken July 4th, 2005 from my observatory New Mexico Meade LXD75 8" f/4 Schmidt Newtonian Hand guided with an Orion 910mm Guidescope 30 minute exposure on Kodak E200 slide film Olympus OM-1 and Stiletto Focuser.