This series of pictures covers the Veil Nebula, also known as the Cygnus Loop, a Supernova remnant in the constellation Cygnus, that covers nearly 3 degrees in the sky (~6 times the diameter of the moon).  A supernova remnant (SNR) is the resultant stellar structure from the explosion of a star in a supernova.  The supernova remnant is bounded by an expanding shock wave, and consists of ejected material expanding from the explosion.  The source of the supernova was a star ~20 times more massive than our Sun, which exploded somewhere between 10,000 to 20,000 years about.  At the time, the supernova would have been brighter than Venus and visible in the daylight.  The nebula is expanding at a expanding at a velocity of 1.5 million km per hour.  The Veil Nebula has two other names - the Cirrus Nebula and the Filamentary Nebula, and has been measured to be at a distance of 2,400 light years from Earth.  Some parts of the nebula appear to be “rope-like” filaments.  The current explanation, is that these are thin shock waves, that are only visible when viewed edge-on, giving the appearance of a filament.  The Veil Nebula has an estimated diameter of 130 light years, and the thickness of the filaments are roughly 4 billion miles (approximately the distance from the Earth to Pluto).There are three photos in this series:  The Full Veil Nebula, the Western Veil Nebula, and the Eastern Veil Nebula.

2nd Photo – Western Veil Nebula was shot on September 2, 2022 – 38 300 second images for a total of 3 hours and 10 minutes.

The second photo covers the Western Veil Nebula, NGC6960 (also known as Caldwell 34), is also called the Witch’s Broom Nebula, is the western portion of the full Veil Nebula, which is in the upper right-hand portion of this picture. In the middle left portion of this photo is Pickering’s triangle (also known as Pickering’s Wedge and Fleming’s Triangular Wisp). Pickering’s triangle is a heavily photographed portion of the Veil Nebula due to its structure and wisps of nebula.  It was actually discovered by Williamina Fleming at the Harvard College Observatory under the direction of Edward Pickering (the Observatory director).  Fleming was a Harvard “Computer” hired to analyze and process observatory data.  Fleming had originally been hired as a housemaid, but became a strong advocated for advancement of women in Astronomy, and she is credited with many discoveries, including the Horsehead Nebula.There are two other objects in this photograph, at the lower left, NGC6974 & NGC6979, both “Knots of Nebulosity”.  Sometimes, NGC6979 is referred to as Pickering’s Triangle, but position data indicates otherwise.  NGC6974 is sometimes referred to as the “Carrot”.

These pictures were shot with the IDAZ Dual Narrowband filter which is great for heavy light pollution areas (like mine), moonlight, and allows light transmission in two main frequency regions:1.     Hydrogen Alpha (Ha) (red) at 656.3 nm with a bandwidth of 15nm2.     Oxygen III (Oiii) (blue) at 500.7 nm with a bandwidth of 35nmThis image was processed in two color formats – One shot color (OSC) (which is dominated by the red spectrum). My setup:

• Mount: EQ6R-Pro
• Telescope: Williams Optics 81 mm Zenithstar doublet
• ZWO-ASI224MC color camera for guiding with the Zenithstar guide
• Hotech Corporation 2” Field Flattener
• ZWO ASI2600MC Pro; Camera cooled to -10 deg C, with ZWO Duo-Band Narrowband Light Pollution Reduction Filter
• Bortle-9 – South Los Angeles shot from my backyard
• Image Processing: Pixinsight – Using videos from multiple youtube teachers and website.  @Cosgrove’sCosmos (Thank you for your recent feedback in my image processing), @ViewintoSpace, @EnteringintoSpace, @Lukomatico – Lots of great on-line teachers/examples.
• Incorporated Russell Croman’s amazing products (Blur, Noise, and Star Xterminators)