Nebula · Cygnus

Dentelles du Cygne, voile ouest

One piece of the great ring of the Veil Nebula.

In the catalogue, the thumbnail for this object is cropped in on its subject, so that it can be seen at card size. This view here is the whole photograph, as I produced it.

It is what is left of a star that exploded 10,000 to 20,000 years ago, about 2,400 light-years away. The bright star 52 Cygni looks as though it sits on top of it, but it has nothing to do with the nebula. It is 201 light-years away, nearly twelve times closer: pure coincidence of perspective. The gas is fine and filamentary, and it emits on narrow lines. So it is a target of choice for the dual-band filter. Every hour of exposure adds filaments where there was nothing but a veil.

Source: Wikipédia en français, NGC 6960. A figure wrong? Report it.

41m 1 shot

0 towards 22h 12m · cumulative integration on this object

Temps d'intégration : the total exposure time, the sum of every exposure stacked on an object.