SH2-108 (Butterfly Nebula ) A very large area in the heart of Cygnus is where you will find SH-108. Also called IC 1318, or Gamma Cygni, SH2-108 is a bright and easy nebula to image in just about anything. It is very large, so you will need a large field of view to capture all of it. The brightest area is near the bright star Gamma Cygni and is known as The Butterfly nebula. All of SH2-108 responds to the hydrogen-alpha very well, and you can create a fantastic high contrast black and white image using just that one filter. But if you want to add color, then an HA-RGB or standard LRGB works nicely as well. The narrowband imagers need to stay around the Butterfly area because that is where the OIII and SII are the strongest. Once you leave this area, the H-Alpha is so strong that you end up with a mostly green nebula. Because of this, you still need to use more OIII and SII around the butterfly to balance the color nicely. For a complete list of the Sharpless Catalog visit my main site at http://www.sharplesscatalog.com

---