NGC 1788 The Cosmic Bat

NGC 1788 is a reflection nebula located in a corner of the constellation Orion and was first described by William Herschel, who included it in the New General Catalogue (NGC). 

As a reflection nebula, it is illuminated by young stars nesting in its core and is flanked by the dark nebula known as Lynds 1616 (which is apparently part of NGC 1788).

In 2010 ESO captured with the 2.2 m telescope at ESO's La Silla observatory in Chile a detailed image of this nebula. In the press release of the image, they said: "...it forms a figure reminiscent of a giant bat spreading its wings...". Since then, the name "Cosmic Bat" has been widely used (ESO also captured later (2019) the most detailed view to date of this object with the 8.2 m ESO VLT telescope).

The images presented here are a HaRGB composition. The exposure was taken from my observatory in Àger with Takahashi TOA-150 and STL-11000M camera at a resolution of 1.69"/pixel. The first image is widefield version which covers a field of 1º 45' x 1º 15'. The second image is a crop to better show the nebula detail (In this image, north is up).

Total exposure time is about 33 hours.

Click on the images for a higher resolution version, or go to the Gallery section for complete exposure details.

Image processing: Pixinsight.

Observatory automation and remote operation with Talon6