The Veil Nebula (Cygnus Loop)

One of the largest objects in the sky is the Veil Nebula, which spans six Moon diameters in Constellation Cygnus ("The Swan").  In its entirety,
it is simply known as the The Veil Nebula, or Cygnus Loop, with separate catalog numbers assigned to various portions of the nebula.  The brighter
areas are the East Veil (NGC 6992, 6995) which some say resembles a "fishhook" and the West Veil (NGC 6960) which is sometimes referred to as
"the witches broom".  The Veil is a supernova remnant from an exploding star 5-10,000 years ago.  Some observers may find it hard to believe that the
entire Veil Nebula was caused by a single exploding star.  However, in astronomical distances The Veil is relatively close to us at 2,600 light years
explaining why it appears to span so much of the sky.


Large deep sky objects are photographd by taking images of several areas of the night sky and combining them into one
composite image.  The Veil Nebula above was photographed in six sections at about an hour per section, preprocessed with
calibration frames, combined into one composite image, and processed to a final picture.  (From a keyboard use Ctl +/- to zoom
any portion of the image.  From a touchscreen, use pinch-zoom).


{ Photo:  R Lang & Associates }