This super nova remnant is located in the constellation Cygnus. The Veil complex consist 3 main portions with this, the Western, the second brightest. The complex is located about 1,400 light years from earth. The super nova explodes between 5 and 8 thousand years ago. The remains that we see have been expanding since that time. The complex covers an area 6 times as large as the full moon. The two bright portions, the Western and the Eastern Veil can be seen with moderate backyard telescopes under reasonably dark skies. Larger scopes and dark skies are required to see the third component, Pickering's Triangle. The complex was discovered by William Herschel in 1784.
This photo is my first color photo with the SBIG 8300M CCD camera. I've had the camera since early spring. I began having problems with the camera shortly before the filter wheel arrived. The camera has been back to SBIG twice. They were very helpful and now the problems are fixed and I am imaging in color. The 2nd return was not the camera but my laptop, now I have a new laptop. This shot is only 1 hour and 21 minutes of total exposure. 9 x 180 seconds through Red, Green, and Blue filters. I had the camera binned at 2x2. I was also breaking in a new lap top and didn't have the right drivers loaded to use guiding, thus the shortish exposures.
I used CCDStack to dark subtract and align each color set. I then aligned the resulting 3 images and color combined in CCDStackas well. Then over to PixInsight LE and PhotoShop CS3 for processing. Carboni's tools and Noise ninja were also used in the processing.
Much more data would be good but I am pretty pleased with the results.
Image Details
Scope - William Optics FLT 110 Lite
Reducer/Flattener - William Optics RF IV system at f5.6
Mount - Celestron CGE unguided
Camera - SBIG ST8300M with FW5 filter wheel
Filters - Baader 36mm RGB
9 x 180 second exposures through each color filter total exposure = 1 hour 15 minutes
Temp. Set - minus 5 deg C
Software - CCDStack, PixInsight LE, PhotoShop CS3, CCDSoft for capture
