NGC 6992 - The Veil Nebula
Date: July 25, 2020
Cosgrove’s Cosmos Catalog ➤#0044
NGC 6992 - The Veil Nebula (click to enlarge)
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About the Target
NGC 6992, The Veil nebula, is a collection of hot gas and dust that forms a portion of a supernova remnant. Located 2400 light-years in the constellation of Cygnus, It forms one visible portion of the Cynus Loop - an expanding shockwave bubble from a star that went supernova between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago. The expanding gas from this explosion compressed Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Sulfur, causing the formation of shockwaves and causing the colors you see here. The bubble has expanded over time to a loop that is 6 degrees across - which makes it a huge feature in the night sky. While The Veil is usually associated with NGC 6992, the full arc of dust and gas actually has two other designations NGC 6995, and IC 1340, which then covers this full segment
Another portion of this remnant - NGC 6960 can be seen on another image on this site.
Annotated Image
Annotated image of the NGC 6823 & 6820 was created with Pixinsight’s Imagesolver and AnotateImage scripts.
Location in the Sky
IAU/Sky & Telescope Constellation Chart of Cynus with the location of the Veil Nebula indicated by a yellow arrow.
About the Project
I captured sub for this image on the evening of 7-24-20. Even though there were some early clouds, I set up both imaging rigs and was capturing photons for most of the evening. We did have some clouds roll through - causing the guider to lose the guide star - and creating a chain of events where Sequence Generator Pro - the software used to capture these images - shut things down, waited a bit, and then - as the cloud has moved off - restarted the sequence back. I even managed to grab some sleep during this process. Automation is starting to pay off!
The framing on this one is a little tight for my focal length - but I think I got most of it is ok. I planned this out yesterday afternoon using a Sequence Generator Pro software tool to lay out the precise framing. When I executed the sequence last night, the rig slewed to the object, plate solved to confirm location and current angle, and then using my Flacon rotator, spun the camera to frame it just so…. So again - the automation is paying off.
For Reference, here is a link to my NGC 6960image.
Commentary from 7-28-21 when adding this project to the website
The only comment I would make here is that the younger version of myself used a bit of heavy hand on noise reduction. As a result, this image has a polished texture profile that I don’t find natural any longer. It’s still a nice image, but one that has been just hit too hard with noise reduction for my preferences now.
Capture Details
Lights
65 x 120 seconds
The total integration time is 1.6 hours
Cal Frames
50 x 2 second Bias exposures
25 x 120 second Dark exposures
50 Flats
Capture Hardware
Scope: William Optics 132mm FLT F/7 APO
Guide Scope: Apterna 60mm
Camera: ZWO ASI294MC-Pro
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290Mini
Camera Rotator: Pegasus Astro Falcon
Focus Motor: Pegasus Astro Focus Cube 2
Mount: Ioptron CEM60Polar Alignment: Ioptron Ipolar integrated alignment cameras
Software
Capture Software: Control: PHD2 Guider, Sequence Generator Pro controller
Image Processing: Deepsky Stacker, Pixinsight, Photoshop, Coffee, extensive processing indecision and second guessing, and much swearing…..
During the Summer of 2020, whilst stuck at home because of Covid I became very in improving the automation of the platform and achieving a more precise framing of the shots I made…