Lobster Nebula, NGC 6357

The Lobster Nebula NGC 6357 The Lobster Nebula is forming some of the most massive stars known.  Cataloged as NGC 6357, the Lobster Nebula houses the open star cluster Pismis 24 near its center — a home to unusually bright and massive stars thought to have formed from a massive molecular cloud. The overall blue glow near the inner star forming region results from the emission of Oxygen gas gas. The surrounding nebula holds a complex tapestry of gas, dark dust, stars still forming, and newly born stars. The intricate patterns are caused by complex interactions between interstellar winds, radiation pressure, and magnetic fields, and gravity. NGC 6357 spans about 400 light years and lies about 8,000 light years away toward the constellation of the Scorpion in the southern sky. While called the lobster nebula it appears to look more like a turtle in this image.  The dramatic false color image  highlights the contributions of hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen, energized by intense ultraviolet radiation from the nearby stars, to the glow of the nebula. Green in the image come from Hydrogen gas, red come from Sulfur  and blue comes from Oxygen.  The image was taken in Rio Hurtado, Chile.  It consists of 57 atomic filter images taken over a total of 30 hours plus 3 hours of imaging through true color filters . The image was done by making a synthetic luminance from the narrowband images and then blending in the color from each using the color blending mode in Photoshop CC2020. The stars were removed during the processing using Starnet++ and then reintroduced from the true color images.