Eastern Veil Nebula – 17th Aug 2025
The Eastern Veil Nebula is part of a large supernova remnant called the Cygnus Loop. The parent star exploded between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago and the resulting gas cloud has now spread over a large area of the sky, covering an area about 36 times the size of the Moon in the constellation of Cygnus. The nebula is about 2400 light years distant, and the whole complex of gas clouds is about 65 light years across. The Eastern Veil nebula shown above is only a small part of this total gas cloud, though it is one of the brightest parts.
NGC6992 is strictly only the designation for right-hand part of the nebula in the image above, which was discovered by William Herschel in 1784. Other parts of the nebula have their own designations, including NGC6995 for the left-hand area of the above image.
The data for this image was gathered using a mono camera with both an H-Alpha and OIII filter, then the H-Alpha data was put into the red channel and the OIII data into green and blue channels. So the red area of the image indicates Hydrogen gas, whilst the green/blue colours indicates Oxygen. These filters allow images to be taken even in light polluted skies as they only allow a very narrow bandwidth of light to pass, which means most light pollution is blocked out. The total integration time was relatively short at just 3.5 hours, but by blocking the light pollution, the image is quite detailed.
All processing was performed in Pixinsight, using Russel Croman’s Blur Xterminator to sharpen up the stars, and Deep SNR for noise reduction. Those are the main two processes that lead to the final sharp, detailed and noise free image.
Image Details
- Date: 17th August 2025.
- Telescope: Altair Astro 72EDF. Focal Length: 432mm, Aperture: F6.
- Camera: Altair Astro 183MM Cooled Mono Astro Camera. Offset 40. Gain 400. Temp -10degC.
- Filters: H-Alpha: Baader 7nm, OIII: Baader 8.5nm.
- Mount: Skywatcher HEQ5.
- Guide Scope: Altair Astro 60mm.
- Guide Camera: QHY5LII.
- Exposure Details: H-Alpha: 14 x 500sec (1hr 56min), OIII: 12 x 500sec (1hr 40min).
- Total Integration Time: 3hrs 56min.