The Veil nebula complex in Cygnus: a panoramic view
With the Summer season ready to leave the Northern hemisphere, we managed to capture another wonderful region in Cygnus, the one hosting the glorious Veil Nebula.
The Veil Nebula complex (NGC 6960, NGC 6974, NGC 6979, IC 1340 and NGC 6992).
The image above comes from the combination of 60, 120-second exposures, remotely taken on 6 Sept. 2024 with the Samyang 135+Paramount ME+ZWO ASI 6200MC Pro robotic unit available as part of the Virtual Telescope Project facility in Manciano, Italy. The covered field of view is of 15 x 10 square degrees. The lens worked at f/2.4, under dark skies (SQM > 21.5).
The frames were carefully processed by the DeepLab team as part of a long term collaboration; the resulting image is a joy to see.
The nebular complex is known as Sh2-103, the 2nd release of a catalogue of emission nebulae compiled by astronomer Steward Sharpless in the mid of last Century. Its many parts have different IDs from different catalogues, in particular the brightest components are NGC 6960 (the westernmost region, near the foreground star 51 Cyg), NGC 6974, NGC 6979, IC 1340 and NGC 6992 (the easternmost part). The whole structure is nicknamed “Veil” for obvious reasons, given its truly elegant appearance. The so-called “Pickering Triangle“, a bit east from NGC 6974 and NGC 6979, is also there. Moving from the nebula to the bottom right, we find the open star cluster NGC 6940.
The Veil nebula was originated by a supernova explosion happened 10-, 20-thousand years ago and its distance is now estimated in about 2500 light years.
Curiously, our data were collected exactly on the 240th anniversary since its discovery by W. Herschel.
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