Instrument

Takahashi FSQ-106ED @ f/5.0 (530 mm F.L.) Captured at 2.1 arcsec/pixel.  Shown at 2.88 and 8.18 arcsec/pixel.

Mount

Paramount MyT

Camera

SBIG STF-8300M Self Guiding Package w/ mono ST-i, using AstroDon E-Series RGB, 5mn Ha and 3nm OIII filters.

Acquisition Data

7/16/2016 to 8/17/2016 Chino Valley, AZ with CCD Commander & CCDSoft. 

Exposure

 RGB combine ratios are 1.00, 1.11, 1.17 (for the star color)

Software

• PixInsight & Photoshop CS6.

• eXcalibrator v5.0 for (g:r) color balancing, using 192 stars from the APASS database.

• PixInsight processing includes calibration, registering, stacking, RGB and Ha:OIII:OIII creation, gradient removal and non-linear stretching with HistogramTransformation .

• Noiseware 5, a PhotoShop plug-in.

• PhotoShop to add the RGB image for star color and a slight color correction of the nebula.

Comment

North is to the right.

Although this image was taken with narrow band filters it is a fairly good presentation of what the nebula looks like if red, green and blue filters were used. This is possible because the band width of the OIII filter is about half way between green and blue. This technique works especially well with this nebula because the RGB colors are mostly red and cyan.

These wisps of gas are all that remain visible of a Milky Way star. Many thousands of years ago that star exploded in a supernova leaving the Veil Nebula.  At the time, the expanding cloud was likely as bright as a crescent Moon toward the constellation of Cygnus, visible for weeks to people living at the dawn of recorded history. The remaining supernova remnant lies about 1400 light-years away and covers over five times the size of the full Moon.  The Veil Nebula is also known as the Cygnus Loop.
Source:  NASA APOD