ScienceDownEast | ScienceDownEast Astrophotography | Nebulae | NGC 6960 Veil Nebula | NGC 6992 Eastern Veil Nebula
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The Eastern Veil Nebula (NGC 6992/6995, with adjacent filaments cataloged as IC 1340) is a bright, richly structured portion of the larger Veil Nebula supernova remnant in Cygnus.
It marks part of the shock front from a massive star that exploded thousands of years ago, sending a blast wave plowing through the surrounding interstellar medium.
Seen edge-on, the Eastern Veil appears as delicately woven filaments and curtains of gas, with especially strong O III and Hα emission tracing the expanding shock.
At an estimated distance of about ~2,400 light-years in the Orion–Cygnus arm of the Milky Way (Veil Nebula overview), the entire remnant spans roughly 100 light-years across, but individual arcs like NGC 6992 cover only a fraction of that on the sky. Narrowband filters isolating O III and Hα are especially effective on this target, helping the glowing shock fronts stand out sharply against the dense star field of Cygnus and revealing the intricate, lace-like structure of the remnant. Look for NGC 6992 just east of the brighter Western Veil (NGC 6960, the “Witch’s Broom”), near the rich Milky Way band running through Cygnus. [generated by ChatGPT]
Total image time was 2 hour and 40 minutes.
| Moon Phase | New Moon | ||||||||||
| Exposure | 8 x 20 min | ||||||||||
| Gain | 100 | ||||||||||
| Camera | ToupTek ATR2600C [6224 × 4168] | ||||||||||
| Optics | 120mm Sky-Watcher Esprit on a Proxisky UMi20S Strain Wave mount | ||||||||||
| Guiding | ToupTek GPM462M using PHD2 with a 400mm guide scope. Average 15-min sub GuideRMS ranged from 0.56 to 0.89 using 0.5s exposures. | ||||||||||
| Controller | KStars on MeLe Quieter 4C | ||||||||||
| Filter | Triad Quad Ultra (strong Hα / O III response for emission nebulae and supernova remnants) | ||||||||||
| Location | St. Croix Observatory, Nova Scotia. | ||||||||||
| Date | 2025-11-20 | ||||||||||
| Processing | Processed in PixInsight. | ||||||||||
| PixInsight Processing |
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