Mosaic Image of Cat Paw Nebula, Lobster Nebula & M6

This Mosaic image captures a rich combination of nebulas and star clusters in the constellation Scorpius. From left to right, the most prominent objects are the cat paw nebula, the lobster nebula, Sh 2-12, Sh 2-13 and M6.

These dramatic objects are regions of active star formation where the hot young stars are causing the surrounding hydrogen gas to glow. In their natural colours, they appear bright red due to a rich presence of ionised hydrogen. This photo mapped different atoms to different colour channels, making it a cool combination of science and artistic expression. (See 'Hubble Palette' for more information on this technique).

(The data was acquired from iTelescope, which I processed using pixinsight and photoshop).