Veil Nebula
NGC 6960 / Caldwell 34
The Veil Nebula is the remnant of an exploded star. It is massive; when viewed from Earth it is over 30 times the area of the full Moon. The actual diamater is about 65 light-years and our distance from it is around 2,500 light-years. Even the finest filaments are huge; their thickness is about the distance from the Sun to Pluto! The supernova explosion (that this nebula is the remnant of) happened less than 20,000 years ago.
Note that this picture only contains the Western Veil Nebula so far.
Technical details
This picture is a mosaic of 4 (very much overlapping) panels and we are hoping to extend it further.
| Telescope | Skywatcher Esprit 100ED (f/5.5) |
| Filter | Atik Narroband 7nm Ha/SII/OIII |
| Field flattener | Skywatcher Esprit (1x) |
| Camera | QHYCCD 268m, -15°C, Mode 1, Gain 56, Offset 30 |
| Resolution | 3408x2047 (cropped & scaled 50%) |
| Light frames | H: 15/15 (600s), 2h30m total |
| S: 15/15 (600s), 2h30m total | |
| O: 15/15 (600s), 2h30m total | |
| 7h30m total | |
| Flat frames | 32 each (3s, per channel brightess) |
| Darkflat frames | 32 |
| Dark frames | - |
| Bias frames | - |
| Location | Bolton, UK |
| Local time | 2022-06-16 00:26 - 02:31 (12 frames) |
| 2022-06-21 00:07 - 02:10 (12 frames) | |
| 2022-06-22 01:13 - 02:09 (6 frames) | |
| 2022-06-22 23:42 - 02:26 (15 frames) | |
| Image center | 20h47m47s +30°49'09" |
| Field of view | 2°39’ x 1°35’ (rotation 72°) |