Veil Nebula, NGC 6960 (Copy)

 Veil Nebula, Witch’s Broom Ten thousand years ago, before the dawn of recorded human history, a new light would have suddenly have appeared in the night sky and faded after a few weeks. Today we know this light was from a supernova or exploding star, and record the expanding debris cloud as the the Veil Nebula. This sharp telescopic view is centered on a western segment of the Veil Nebula cataloged as NGC 6960 but less formally known as the Witch’s Broom Nebula. Blasted out in the cataclysmic explosion, the interstellar shock wave plows through space sweeping up and exciting interstellar material. Imaged with narrow band filters, the glowing filaments are like long ripples in a sheet seen almost edge on, remarkably well separated into atomic hydrogen (red) and oxygen (blue-green) gas. The complete supernova remnant lies about 1400light years away towards the constellation Cygnus. This Witch’s Broom actually spans about 35 light-years. The bright star in the frame is 52 Cygni, visible with the unaided eye from a dark location but unrelated to the ancient supernova remnant. I feel that the image is a woman with red hair in a flowing dress flying through the cosmos with her arm stretched out. The image was taken with the 6″ Takahashi  FS152 and the Finger Lakes Instrument’s PL16803 camera and is a combination of 68 images taken over 22 hours.