Dark nebulae are something completely out of reach for my usual imaging conditions… pitch black skies and long exposures are mandatory. Deep Sky West offers both, so dark nebulae are a prime target for RGB imaging there.

This is the “Howling Wolf” Nebula, consisting of a collection of objects, i.e., vdB 149/150 and LDN 1235. The LRGB composite uses 32 luminance, 13 red, 12 green and 5 blue subs of 900 sec each, totalling to more than 15 hours of exposure time.

Processing these objects is quite interesting. Although it is an RGB image, so the color scheme is well defined, the appearance of the bight and dark dust clouds depends significantly on the processing. One can get anything from dark brownish to pale whitish tones. The above version is my personal preference.