The Cygnus-X region of the constellation Cygnus (The Swan) is described by NASA as a "bubbling cauldron of star birth. Massive stars have blown bubbles or cavities in the dust and gas - a violent process that triggers both the death and birth of stars."

I have re-mapped the colour such that yellow-white regions are warm centers of star formation; the light green shows tendrils of dust; and red indicates other types of dust that may be cooler, in addition to ionized gas from nearby massive stars. My mapping is not as dramatically green and red as the way NASA colour-mapped the original image.

The region represented in this image is above and to the right of the Luminous Blue Variable star (LVB) G79.29+0.46 close to the centre of this previously posted image: www.flickr.com/photos/138256409@N08/49127593132/in/datepo...

Explanation Credits:
JPL/CalTech
NASA

Data acquisition: Spitzer Space Telescope, NASA
Data processing: Doug Griffith
Image: RGB image per colour mapping below:
.... red channel: 24 μm Spitzer
.... green channel: 8 μm Spitzer
.... blue channel: 5.8 μm Spitzer
Processing software: ESA/ESO/NASA Fits Liberator 3, Pixinsight, Photoshop CS6

Processing Note:
I have re-mapped the Spitzer data; and adjusted the intensity of the three channels in Pixinsight in order to create the RGB colour image presented here. There has been some star-reduction in the processing.