This is the Flying Bat (red) and Squid (blue) nebula:

This is a dataset available from Telescope.Live and represents 46 hours of narrowband imaging. This image was not easy to process because the Squid nebula embedded in the Flying Bat Nebula is very faint, so I had to apply multiple stretches and use a number of different processes in PixInsight to be able to make the Squid Nebula visible while keeping the stars from becoming over-saturated.

I decided to present this using the RGB color palette instead of the Hubble Palette because the final image looks much more striking in RGB. The contrast of blue on red makes the Squid nebula stand out more than it looked in the traditional Hubble Palette.

I learned a lot while processing this image and feel my skills are sharper as a result of this experience. If you are interested in processing this image, contact me and I’ll make the integrated H, S, and O FITS files available for you to work with (they’re the primary/master files and are unstretched so you won’t have to align them to each other and can focus on bringing out the details).

A larger version that includes the plate solution is available on AstroBin: https://astrob.in/hc6gkw/0/