Imaged from Beckwith Township, ON

The Veil Nebula is a supernova remnant in the Constellation Cygnus. The western part of this asterism is known as NGC 6960 or the Witch's broom Nebula. The part of the Veil Complex immediately to the east of NGC 6960 is known as Pickering's Triangle and is visible on the left side of this image. The bright star that seems to be attached to 6960 is known as 52 Cygni; and is actually not associated with the Veil Nebula; and in fact, is much closer to earth (only 206 light years distant).

The Veil Nebula is very difficult to see; and even with a telescope without special filters, is very faint. This subject screams for Hydrogen alpha and OIII filters; a modified DSLR or specialized astrophotography camera to bring out the colours.

This image was shot using an unmodified Nikon D5300 @ ISO 200; with 4 minute subs and a total integration of 2 hours and 8 minutes.


A Stellarvue SV70T telescope with a 0.8x reducer/field flattener was employed and had a final focal length of 336mm and a final aperture of f/4.8. This was first light with this combination!


Processing is extremely challenging with this subject due to the weak signal of the unfiltered nebula; and the extremely star-rich environment the Veil is located within. Even with two separate star masks and star reductions using the Morphological Transformation Tool in PixInsight, many stars remain; although the wisps of the Veil Nebula are now much easier to see.

Processing in PixInsight 1.8; and Photoshop CC.