NGC6960 West Veil (Witch’s Broom) Nebula

NGC6960 West Veil Nebula (a.k.a. Witches Broom Nebula); captured at HCH with RaBZ TSFF LPro on 23 August 2022

Fun facts

The Veil Nebula is a cloud of heated and ionized gas and dust in the constellation Cygnus.  NGC6960, the Western Veil’s Witch’s Broom Nebula spans about 35 light-years. The bright star in the frame is 52 Cygni, visible with the unaided eye from a dark location but unrelated to the ancient supernova remnant.

The full Veil Nebula constitutes the visible portions of the Cygnus Loop, a supernova remnant. The source supernova was a star 20 times more massive than the Sun which exploded between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago.  At the time of explosion, the supernova would have appeared brighter than Venus in the sky, and visible in daytime. The remnants have since expanded to cover an area of the sky roughly 3 degrees in diameter (about 6 times the diameter, and 36 times the area, of the full Moon).  While previous distance estimates have ranged from 1200 to 5800 light-years, a recent determination of 2400 light-years is based on direct astrometric measurements.

Other Catalog Designations: NGC6960, C34, Ced182a,  LBN191
Subtype: Supernova Remnant
Distance from Earth: 2400 light years
Visual Magnitude: 7.0
Constellation: Cygnus

{from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_Nebula and https://www.universeguide.com/supernova/veilnebula}

Equipment

Polar alignment: QHYCCD camera (controlled by Polemaster)
Imaging stream: Orion 10″ f/8 Ritchey-Chretien Astrograph Telescope; Canon EOS Ra with with Teleskop Service Flattener 1.0x for RC Telescopes (TS-RCFLAT2) and Optilong L-Pro light pollution filter
Mount: Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro Equatorial Mount (controlled by EQMOD)
Autoguider: Orion 60mm Multi-Use Guide Scope, Orion StarShoot AutoGuider Pro Mono Astrophotography Camera (controlled by PHD2)
All equipment controlled by HP Probook running Sequence Generator Pro v3.2.0.660.

Capture & processing notes

Sequence plans: ISO1600; 68x300sec; captured 23Aug 2124MDT – 24Aug 0345MDT. Total exposure time: 5:40 hrs.
Capture: 23 August 2022
Shooting location: Colorado Springs, Colorado
Processing: Stacked in APP using 99% of subframes, processed in LR/PS.