High in the sky at this time of year is the constellation Cygnus - the Swan. Lying within Cygnus is the gorgeous Veil Nebula that is so large it has been broken into Western and Eastern components. The picture above constitutes most of the Western Veil (NGC 6960). What we see is a cloud of ionized and superheated gas that is left over from a star that went supernova (stellar explosion) around 5,000 to 8,000 years ago. It's easy to see why some refer to this as the Witch's Broom nebula and if you look closely, you can see a lot of structure that resembles filaments of light that even appear to be intertwined. It's amazing to see the resemblance of this structure to that of DNA.
Photo Details
September 22, 2014
Orion 8" Astrograph on VX Mount
Nikon D3100 Camera - ISO 1600
Baader MPC Mark III Multi-Purpose Coma Corrector
Skyglow filter
Autoguider
35 sub-frames at 3.0 minutes/frame
Total Exposure Time = 1 hour 45 minutes
Image Stacking in Deep Sky Tracker
Image Processing in PhotoShop
This is just amazing!! I think it looks like a worm hole or a secret portal to another dimension..... I wonder where it leads??
ReplyDelete