Instrument

12.5" RCOS @  ~f/9 (2880 mm fl) 0.64 arcsec / pixel.  The Zoomify image scale is 1.28 to 3.26 arcsec / pixel.

Mount

Paramount ME

Camera

SBIG STL-11000 w/ internal filter wheel, AstroDon 6nm  Filter

Acquisition Data

9/9/2010 to 10/26/2010 Chino Valley, AZ... with CCDAutoPilot3 & CCDSoft.  AOL guided

Exposure

Ha  540 min (18 x 30 min, bin 1x1)

Click here for the synthetic RGB color version.

Click here for the color mapped narrowband  images

Software

• CCDSoft, CCDStack, Photoshop CS w/ the Fits Liberator plugin.

• PixFix32 (pre-beta) to repair column defects.

• CCDStack to calibrate, register, normalize, data reject and mean combine.

• PhotoShop for non-linear stretching and sharpening.

• Noiseware Pro, a PhotoShop plug-in

North is ~ to the left.  The image is rotated 70 degrees CCW.

The Western Veil, NGC 6960, commonly named The Witch's Broom, is part of the Veil Nebula, which is also known as the Cygnus Loop. The Veil nebula is located in the constellation, Cygnus, at a distance of about 1400 light-years. Its apparent size is more than five times the full Moon.

The Veil Nebula is a supernova remnant of heated and ionized gas. The source supernova exploded some 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. This image, captured with a hydrogen-alpha filter, shows the extent of the hydrogen gas.