The Veil Nebula is a supernova remnant, many portions of which have acquired their own individual names and catalogue identifiers. The source supernova was a star 20 times more massive than the Sun, which exploded around 8,000 years ago. The remnants have since expanded to cover an large area of the sky. The distance to the nebula is about 1,470 light-years.
The names Veil Nebula, Cirrus Nebula, and Filamentary Nebula generally refer to all the visible structure of the remnant, or even to the entire loop itself. The structure is so large that several NGC numbers were assigned to various arcs of the nebula. There are three main visual components:
TOP- The Western Veil, consisting of NGC 6960 (the “Witch’s Broom”, “Finger of God”, “Lacework Nebula”, “Filamentary Nebula”) near the foreground star 52 Cygni.
MIDDLE- Pickering’s Triangle (or Pickering’s Triangular Wisp), visible toward the central area of the loop.
NGC 6974 and NGC 6979 are luminous knots in a fainter patch of nebulosity on the northern rim between NGC 6992 and Pickering’s Triangle.
BOTTOM- NGC 6995, NGC 6992 and IC 1340.These three luminous areas make up the Eastern Veil, whose brightest area is NGC 6992.
Technical info:
TS 80mm f6 APO triplet refractor
ZWO ASI 071MC Pro
Celestron AVX mount
2 panel mosaic:
Optolong L-eNhance dualband filter (for Ha-OIII)
Temp: -5c – gain 150
exposure: 114x 240sec
IDAS-LPS-P2 filter (RGB for the stars)
Temp: -5c – gain 90
exposure: 160x 180sec
Total integration: ~15 hours
Acquisition:
Astro Photography Tool
PHD2
Astrotortilla
Post Processing:
Astro Pixel Processor
Photoshop CS5