The Veil Complex in Cygnus - HOORGB (Kevin Thurman)

The Veil Complex in Cygnus - HOORGB

Far outside the densest regions of the constellation Cygnus, is a massive structure known as the Veil Complex. It is the corpse of a star that was 20 times larger than our sun and it was created when that star exploded ~15,000 years ago. At that time, ancient humans would have observed a new venus in the sky for a while as the supernova was visible during the day. Since then, its shockwave has expanded further and further into the surrounding space to form individual nebulas. On the left of this image is the Western Veil, also known as the Witch's Broom and my personal favorite nebula to view in a telescope. Just to its right, a rolling, silky cloud is known as Pickering's Triangle. All the way to the right of the image is the Eastern Veil Nebula.

This image was constructed primarily using narrowband filters which isolate the brightest emissions of Hydrogen (red) and Oxygen (teal). Due to the spindly and loose structure of the complex, this is the best way to faithfully capture its complex structure while producing a fairly accurate color image.

This is my biggest image ever, quite literally. The complex is so large that I couldn't fit it in one frame, so I shot the northern and southern halves separately and stitched them together to create a mosaic image.

RGB was used only for stars here due to the makeup of the object. The subframe counts are totals of both panels. If one were to use a bigger sensor, it would be the equivalent of half that integration time over a larger area. Dates are also not exact as each filter was spread out over days.

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

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Astrometry.net job	n/a
PixInsight job	n/a
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