Yes and no.
Given the bright and colorful competition in the constellation Cygnus, the light of LBN 360 usually hits the sensor only by accident, unnoticed, or as mere "bycatch". On AstroBin, you will mostly find widefield images where this HII emission nebula remains obscured. Only a handful of imager have captured LBN 360 with a tighter framing – and even then, mostly as a sidekick to the main character, the "Dragon Nebula" (Sh2-114). With very rare exceptions (such as the work of David Zimak & Jan Eliasek), its dens dark dust lanes have never been targeted directly. Even across the rest of the web, reference images are incredibly hard to find.
📷 LBN 360 - A Rarity in 90 Hours
https://app.astrobin.com/i/xlcft2/
Therefore, I am thrilled to present the very first dedicated close-up of LBN 360 on AstroBin!
My focus was not only on the beautifully twisted HII emission nebula itself, but especially on the faint, surrounding dark dust clouds. The final image is an Ha-LRGB composition with a total of 90 hours of exposure time, captured from the outskirts of Vienna under challenging Bortle 7 skies.
In post-processing, it was a challenge to separate the heavy light pollution gradients from the incredibly faint signal of the dark nebulae. I managed to gather enough data over multiple nights throughout the summer. Achieving this depth was only possible by utilizing my beloved triple imaging setup: three Skywatcher 150 Quattro telescopes running simultaneously with three ASI 2600MM Pro cameras.
With this introduction, I truly hope to inspire more fellow astrophotographers to dedicate some imaging time to this beautiful, overlooked gem!
CS, Daniel
📷 Triple Setup
https://app.astrobin.com/i/jkb7h2/
