The Veil Nebula is a supernova remnant in the constellation Cygnus. A supernova remnant is a star that explodes with force. What remains of an exploding star is…a remnant which gives it the name supernova remnant. What’s now known as the Veil Nebula or NGC 6960 exploded about 20,000 years ago. Believe it or not, 20,000 years in space is like the equivalent of 1 day in our lives; it’s not that much time.
There are three components that make up the Veil Nebula: the Eastern Veil Nebula, the Western Veil Nebula, and Pickering’s Triangle. This photograph shows the Western Veil Nebula and in particular, the witch’s broom part of the Veil Nebula.
This is my second time photographing NGC 6960; my previous photo was a wide-field photo taken with the Redcat 51. I captured this new one using my bigger telescope, which gives a detailed close-up.
I photographed this as a HOO (Ha and Oiii) image as NGC 6960 really only comprises these 2 elements. Shooting Sii (Sulphur II) may have been a waste of time. In addition to the Ha and Oiii, I also incorporated RGB stars which provide more color.
I did very little editing in Pixinsight–just my normal steps of linear processing, but very little processing in the non-linear state. I found it easier to enhance this in Photoshop with levels, curves, and Topaz Photo AI.
Veil Nebula Pixinsight Steps
Linear
- Open Ha, Oiii, Red, Green, and Blue
- Dynamic crop on all photos
- Dynamic Background Extraction on all photos
- Blur Xterminator on all photos
- Noise Xterminator on all photos
- Histogram Transformation for Ha and Oiii
- Channel Combination for RGB to make an RGB image
- Histogram Transformation for RGB
Non-Linear
- Pixelmath Formax method to combine Ha & Oiii
- Star Xterminator
- Curves Transformation: Contrast
- Curves Transformation: Saturation
- Extract CLE L image from the narrowband stars image made from Star Xterminator
- Add the Narrowband Stars CLE L image to the RGB stars using LRGB combination
- Combine the RGB stars and starless narrowband image using a Pixelmath screen combine function.
- Final contrast enhancements
- Dark structure enhance
Data
| Filter | Integration Time |
|---|---|
| Ha | 6h 15m |
| Oiii | 5h 9m |
| Red | 10m |
| Green | 10m |
| Blue | 10m |
| TOTAL | 11h 54m |