Tip of the Broom

[CKemu]

The past two nights have been a little breezy, but clear none-the-less, so started work on the end of the Eastern Veil Nebula in Cygnus. Two panels, each 20x600s in H-Alpha. Tried this object in 2015, got a blurry mess due to conditions and lack of guiding knowledge, so thought I'd give it another attempt.

[tooth_dr]

Lovely image. Thanks for sharing. 

[CKemu]

I often comment that I prefer winter over summer, long dark nights give rise to extensive telescope time and I do love a good jumper! Truth be told though, I really do love summer constellations, Cygnus the swan is always a “must see” region of the sky; it sits on the plain of the Milky Way and is full of beautiful nebulae.

The Veil is amongst them, a huge supernova remnant from a star that went nova between 3000-6000BC, a shell - a shockwave that is expanding out into our galaxy around 1470 light years away.

This photo taken over the past four clear nights shows a small section of the nebula, which sits behind the foreground star 52 Cygni (a star visible to the unaided eye). The pinks show Hydrogen gas (H-Alpha) and the blues doubly ionized oxygen (OIII).

To make this image I shot it in two halves, with each half being made from H-Alpha and OIII exposures. Each of them being composed of twenty ten-minute-long exposures. Patience is certainly the key with imaging.

For once I can say I am pretty pleased with the result, the weather has been wonderfully clear, however wind lead to guiding errors for the OIII images, which has left softer stars and details, something I want to come back to as soon as possible.

For the technically inclined:
Telescope: Meade LX90 8” SCT – Reduced to f/6.3
Mount: Skywatcher NEQ6.
Camera: ATIK414ex Mono: -20c, 600s exposures. 13.3 hours integration.
Guiding: ATIK OAG with ASI120mm: 1s exposures, 0.5-0.6” RMS, peaking at 1.2” RMS due to gusts.
Editing: Deep Sky Stacker, Image Composite Editor, Photoshop CC 2018 (Channel Mix, Levels, Colour)