Pictures of the Veil Nebula

The Veil Nebula is a supernova remnant located 2,100 lightyears away in the Cygnus constellation that spans 110 lightyears across.

A supernova remnant is the remains of a star that has ended its life in an explosion known as a supernova. In the case of the Veil Nebula, the star in question was 20 times the mass of the Sun and exploded about 8,000 years ago.

A blast wave from the stellar explosion is hitting cooler, more dense interstellar gas and emitting light in the process.

Veil Nebula (part) in HST by Chris Heapy, Macclesfield, UK. Equipment: Televue NP127is Refractor @ 660mm f/l, Atik490EX, 10-Micron GM2000HPS, unguided, 3nm Ha, OIII and SII (Astrodon)

The Veil Nebula is part of the larger Cygnus Loop structure, and the delicate filaments and almost fragile-looking structure are what give the Veil Nebula its nickname.

Because the Veil Nebula is so expansive, astrophotographers love to capture separate sections of the nebula, which have been allocated different names.

The Western Veil Nebula, NGC 6960, is also known as the Witch’s Broom, due to its long, thin, raggedy appearance.

The bright star that can be seen in images of the Western veil is 52 Cygni, and is actually nothing to do with the nebula itself. It is merely a foreground star that just appears to be part of the nebula from our perspective.

Veil Nebula by Scott Prideaux, Stoke on Trent, UK. Equipment: NEQ6, Skywatcher f/5 200p reflector, canon 1100d (unmodded)with cls clip filter.

The Eastern Veil, also known as NGC 6992 and Caldwell 33, contains NGC 6995, or the Bat Nebula. Together, NGC 6992 and NGC 6995 are collectively known as the Network Nebula.

In images where the Eastern Veil is on the left and the Western Veil is on the right, just above the Western Veil you’ll find Pickering’s Triangle, named after the American astronomer Edward Charles Pickering who in the late 19th/early 20th century headed Harvard College Observatory.

While there he employed the ‘Harvard Computers’: an 80-strong team of women astronomers such as Annie Jump Cannon, Henrietta Swan Leavitt and Antonia Maury, who would become some of the most influential and instrumental figures in the history of astronomy.