Dragons of Ara

In the night sky of the Southern Hemisphere two dragons face off, their wings glowing in fiery colors of reds and oranges. Do you see them? The clouds of space gas and dust that shaped these mythical creatures cuts across the Constellation Ara, named after the altar in ancient Greek mythology where the gods formed an alliance to defeat the Titans.
 
To gather the exposures that I needed to create this image, I secured time on telescopes at observatories in both Chile and Australia. The project was plagued by equipment issues and cloudy skies, delaying the effort for more than three months. A few days ago the gear was running and the sky finally cleared long enough that I could gather the remain few hours of exposure I needed to complete the image.
 
12.6 total hours exposure of RGB visible light, plus hydrogen, oxygen & sulfur emissions