Veil Nebula--one side of it

Finally a clear-ish night! I spent almost five hours capturing data, most of it after midnight, when the skies cleared noticeably. And I spent the majority of that time on the Eastern Veil Nebula (Caldwell 33). The big bright area is NGC 6992, and all of this comprises one side (east side) of the Veil Nebula, a supernova remnant from a massive star that ended it all around 8,000 years ago. I will come back on another clear night to get the brighter and larger Western Veil. And this nebula is large, roughly 3 degrees in diameter, covering 36 times the area of a full moon. I shot this in Ha and OIII, 22 x 5 minute exposures for each filter, with the WilliamOptics GT81 and ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro mono camera running at -20C. 

Here's the William Optics GT81 and ZWO cameras I'm using for narrowband imaging:

Here's a crop of NGC 6992, 6995, et. al. Eastern Veil Nebula is a supernova remnant in Cygnus, made up of clouds of dust and ionized hydrogen and oxygen.

 

Posted May 25, 2019