Instrument

Takahashi FSQ-106ED @ f/5.0 (530 mm F.L.)  Captured at 3.5 arcsec/pixel. 

Mount

Paramount ME

Camera

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

Acquisition Data

8/18/2008 to 9/7/2008 Chino Valley... with CCDAutoPilot3

Exposure

SII   240 min. (8 x 30 min. bin 1x1)

Hα    240 min. (8 x 30 min. bin 1x1)
OIII  180 min. (6 x 30 min. bin 1x1)

SII,Ha & OIII are mapped to RGB respectivly

Software

CCDSoft, CCDStack, Photoshop CS w/ the Fits Liberator plugin and Noel Carboni's actions.

CCDStack to calibrate, register, normalize, data reject & combine.

PhotoShop for non-linear stretching and the color combine.

North is to the top in the first image.

The colors of the images on this page closely follow the Hubble Palette. I didn't mess around with the hue of individual colors for the sake of a "pretty picture." The presence of sulfur, hydrogen and oxygen are more clearly shown. Red indicates the presence sulfur, green hydrogen and blue oxygen. However, it looks like the sulfur is only present where there is also hydrogen and oxygen, creating the white areas.

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 bright wisp on the right is known as the Witch's Broom Nebula and can be seen with a small telescope. The Veil Nebula is also known as the Cygnus Loop.

Source:  NASA APOD