NGC6960 Veil Nebula

The Veil Nebula is a breathtaking cloud of heated and ionized gas and dust in the constellation Cygnus. It forms the visible portions of the Cygnus Loop, a vast supernova remnant, with many sections given their own names and catalog designations. The original star was about 20 times more massive than our Sun and exploded between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago. At the moment of its cataclysmic eruption, the supernova would have shone brighter than Venus, visible even in the daytime sky. Over millennia, the remnants have expanded to cover a region roughly three degrees across—six times the diameter of the full Moon, and thirty-six times its area—revealing a delicate cosmic tapestry that stretches across the heavens.

My story: Behold the Veil Nebula, sometimes called the Witch’s Broom—a challenging object to photograph. Capturing its delicate, filamentary structures along with the bright star 52 Cygni as a compositional anchor is essential. Here, the nebula is presented in the iconic Hubble SHO palette (Sulfur, Hydrogen, Oxygen), where the intensely glowing oxygen regions sometimes give the filaments a stunning purplish hue.

I experimented with the balance of the channels, seeking my own interpretation of this cosmic tapestry. The central part of the “broom” near 52 Cygni was particularly challenging, requiring careful handling to avoid overexposure while preserving the intricate filaments.