Reflecting the light of nearby hot stars, NGC 2170 consists of bluish reflection nebulae, a red emission region, many dark absorption nebulae, and a backdrop of colorful stars. The clouds of gas, dust, and hot stars seen here are commonly found in massive, star-forming molecular clouds throughout our galaxy and other galaxies. This nebula in the constellation of the Unicorn (Monoceros). This giant molecular cloud is impressively close, estimated to be only 2,400 light-years or so away. At that distance, this canvas would be over 60 light-years across.

However, unlike other nebulae that I normally image, there is too many dark clouds in this area. In other words, these are heavier gases (than Hydrogen) that do not get ionized easily, so the amount of light coming from this nebula in much lower. Therefore, the images is much dimmer than my other pictures.

And this is in spite of the fact that I spent a lot of time on this nebula! I took 47 images of Luminance data of 20 minutes and 15 images each of RGB colors of 20 minutes each, thereby doing total exposure of over 30 hours!