The Western Veil

The Veil Nebula is a cloud of heated and ionized gas and dust in the constellation Cygnus. It constitutes the visible portions of the Cygnus Loop (radio source W78, or Sharpless 103), a large but relatively faint supernova remnant. The source supernova exploded some 5,000 to 8,000 years ago, and the remnants have since expanded to cover an area roughly 3 degrees in diameter (about 6 times the diameter, or 36 times the area, of the full moon). The distance to the nebula is not precisely known, but recent evidence from the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) supports a distance of about 1,470 light-years.

The Western Veil (also known as Caldwell 34), consisting of NGC 6960 (the "Witch's Broom") near the foreground star 52 Cygni.

Here is my first attempt with guiding. Like any first attempt errors (many) are committed and here was no exception. I wasn't worried much about calibration, just wanted to see the result, and besides i was very sleepy.

Nevertheless it's an interesting nebula!

Image Data: NGC 6960 (the "Witch's Broom")

 

Lens / Scope: William Optics Megrez 102 S.V. with WO Type II 0.8x FF/FR 
Focal Length: 571.2mm 
F/stop: f/5.6 
Exposure: Stack of 42 300-second exposures (3:30 hours total exposure) 
Mount: Sky-Watcher HEQ5 Pro SynScan GOTO (CdC and EQMOD Control) 
Guiding: Sky-Watcher 80 with QHY5 (PHD Control) 
Camera: Canon 500D (Digital Rebel T1i) Baader Mod (Nebulosity2 Control) 
Mode: FIT/RAW 
ISO: 400 
White Balance: Custom, set on sky background 
In-Camera Noise Reduction: Off 
Filter: Hutech IDAS LPS 
Date: July 01, 2011 
Start Time: 23:15 
Location: Beja, Portugal 
Calibration: 10 Darks, 10 Flats, 10 Dark Flats. 
Processing: Calibrated, aligned and stacked in DSS. Post-processing in Photoshop. GradientXTerminator. Carboni Tools.