A dream is to do a complete mosaic of the Scuttling Chook. Here we have a five panel region spanning just over 1 degree, with a total of 65 hrs of exposure.
H-alpha 20 hrs, OIII 24 hrs, SII 21 hrs, all in 1 hr subs. Aspen CG16M on 20" PlaneWave. Except for embedding an sRGB profile, all processing using GoodLook 64. We've reduced the original 7657 pixel wide image to 4096 pixels, for ease of handling.
[link to original full sized image deleted. New link to revised version below]
The range of textures in the region is quite amazing. A grand overview would be that we are looking at a hollow cloud of gas with a convoluted oyster-shell surround, strong in H-alpha (green) and SII (red), the space within glowing with OIII (blue). There is a strong impression that the OIII is blasting out toward the right, through the open face of the oyster.
The top of the oyster shell (12 o'clock) is adorned with the face of a bull, delicately outlined in thin shock fronts.
The left hand side, especially toward 8 o'clock, shows the rough, outer shell of the oyster, with bright crags and dark crannies.
Dead in the centre, we have the Running Chicken's famous Bok-Bok-Bok globules.
Worth a close look: About 30% of the way toward the top left corner is the Chook's nemesis, the evil Fox-Cat (whose face is a quantum superposition of vulpeculine and feline), quietly smoking a post-prandial cigar. For those who have trouble, the head is on the left, the curled-up contented body on the right, and the cigar is poking out toward the left of the mouth. This evil but well-fed creature explains the lack of a visible chook in this image.
Update:
New version with careful attention to red rings around stars, and slightly more contrasty.