Veil Nebula

[Bill Richards]

The "Veil Nebula" is a cloud of heated and ionized gas and dust left over from a massive supernova that occurred 10,000 years ago when a star 20 times more massive than the Sun and ~2,100 light-years away ended its life in a spectacular explosion. The event would have appeared brighter than Venus and visible during the day. The remnants have since expanded to 110 light-years across, covering an area as wide as 6 full moons in the sky as seen from Earth.

Details
Esprit 100
APEX 0.65 focal reducer (FL: 358mm, F/3.6)
Optolong L-Extreme dual-band filter
ASI2600MC-Pro imaging camera @-10C
ASI290MM guide camera on an OAG
NINA, PHD2, PixInsight
65 x 600s Lights, plus Darks, Flats, and Dark Flats

 

[Ben Egbert]

Wow, makes me feel really small. Great image.

 

[AlanLichty]

It almost looks like one of those 3D images that you use colored glasses to view with the offset reds and blues. Beautiful scene even if it is debris from massive destruction. Nice one.

 

[Bill Richards]

It almost looks like one of those 3D images that you use colored glasses to view with the offset reds and blues. Beautiful scene even if it is debris from massive destruction. Nice one.

Yeah - I've seen a lot of images of the Veil Nebula before, but I had only been aware of the Eastern and Western Veils which I figured were just two halves of the explosion remnants. Maybe it's just my imagination, but in this image it appears that there's a ring of ionized gases centered between the two halves (oriented diagonally). One can envision the supernova blasting out a ring of matter from the equator of the star and the two veils from the polar regions.

 

[Raymond]

Wow, so amazing and so beautiful

 

[JimFox]

So awesome Bill! Love the detail you captured, and I like how you are seeing it. I had never pictured it before as 2 halves of an explosion, but it certainly does feel like that.

 

[JimFox]

Congrats on the Featured Astro Photo Bill!

@Bill Richards

 

[Bill Richards]

Congrats on the Featured Astro Photo Bill!

@Bill Richards

Thank you, Jim!

 

[Eric Gofreed]

The "Veil Nebula" is a cloud of heated and ionized gas and dust left over from a massive supernova that occurred 10,000 years ago when a star 20 times more massive than the Sun and ~2,100 light-years away ended its life in a spectacular explosion. The event would have appeared brighter than Venus and visible during the day. The remnants have since expanded to 110 light-years across, covering an area as wide as 6 full moons in the sky as seen from Earth.

Details
Esprit 100
APEX 0.65 focal reducer (FL: 358mm, F/3.6)
Optolong L-Extreme dual-band filter
ASI2600MC-Pro imaging camera @-10C
ASI290MM guide camera on an OAG
NINA, PHD2, PixInsight
65 x 600s Lights, plus Darks, Flats, and Dark Flats

View attachment 41948

just two words for this: Awe Some

 

[Jameel Hyder]

just two words for this: Awe Some

I thought that was one word Eric. Strange some of Awe is good but full of it is not

Amazing image Bill.

 

[Mike Lewis]

Really great image - as mentioned already above, it is very fun and instructive to see this in this wider view to be able to appreciate that these objects that are frequently imaged separately are really part of the same single high energy event far into the past. I also continue to be impressed with what the latest generation of OSC cameras are able to do. That 2600C looks like a winner. I am pretty committed to mono though, so I am looking at the mono version of that camera as perhaps my next astro purchase at some point.

Great result you have here!

ML

 

[Bill Richards]

Really great image - as mentioned already above, it is very fun and instructive to see this in this wider view to be able to appreciate that these objects that are frequently imaged separately are really part of the same single high energy event far into the past. I also continue to be impressed with what the latest generation of OSC cameras are able to do. That 2600C looks like a winner. I am pretty committed to mono though, so I am looking at the mono version of that camera as perhaps my next astro purchase at some point.

Great result you have here!

ML

I would consider the jump over to mono if I had easier access to clear, dark skies. But I'm limited to a 90 minute drive (each way) to the desert in southern California for my imaging sessions, and that's twice a month if I'm lucky. Mono imaging would limit the number of images I can create to just a few per year.

 

[Mike Lewis]

Bill,

2 comments to your reply above:

1) The collection efficiency delta between a OSC camera and the matching mono version is not really as great as one might think. Keep in mind that the sensor sensitivity is increased with the removal of the Bayer filter and that you are collecting color data over EVERY pixel for each color.

2) If you acquire narrowband filters, you can image from your light polluted location and still get amazing contrast. As an example, here is s very short integration image of the Soul Nebula in Hα (28 total minutes) from a suburban location in Longmont, CO, set up on a friend's front lawn. We had cars going by and a nearby streetlamp, as well as light pollution from Longmont, Boulder, and Denver.

Of course, when combined with OIII and SII narrowband data this could be a very nice color image.

I often shoot 30 second long exposures to use for RGB stars in my narrowband images (because I HATE the weird star colors that occur when using narrowband filters). The resulting data can actually be combined to make a very respectable RGB image. This is made from 30 second subframes totaling just 23 minutes per channel and was not collected to make an RGB image, but it is a respectable result anyway. This was from moderately dark skies.

So my long winded point is, you might be surprised to learn that a mono camera does very little to increase your collection time, while giving you advantages in overall resolution and the capability to image in more light polluted environments using narrowband filters.

I would say the the post processing using a mono camera takes longer so if that is an issue for you then the OSC has a potential advantage there. For me, I enjoy the post processing part so that is a 'feature' instead of a 'bug' as far as I am concerned.

ML

 

[Bill Richards]

Good info, Mike. But in addition to living in the heavily light polluted skies of suburban San Diego, I'm only 3 miles from the ocean. That means on the few nights when we don't have a marine layer obscuring the view, the atmosphere is quite humid so the seeing is always poor. I've tried doing some imaging with an L-eXtreme filter and the images are definitely better, but my HFR is always much worse then when I'm under dark, dry skies.

To make matters even worse, my back yard is surrounded by tall palm trees and Cypress trees so the only clear view of the sky is out near the street. So I can't really set things up and just let them run all night long like a lot of people do - I would have to babysit the equipment all night. If I'm going to have to do that, I might as well head to a dark site, and that really limits my imaging time.

 

[Mike Lewis]

Bill,

That sounds similar to me. My property used to be an orchard, so too many tall trees to see much of the night sky except directly overhead. So for years I have been doing one of 2 things:

1) drive out to a dark sky site, set up, image, tear down, drive home. Pretty annoying, virtually impossible to take more than one night's worth of data on anything, and then there is the fickle weather. Too many nights of saying 'It was totally clear all night until right when I got set up, then boom - clouds!'

2) Take a dedicated ~1 week long excursion to dark skies in New Mexico or Arizona to set up at a VRBO type house and image all week. Too expensive to do much more often than once a year best case. Can be very fun (have a local group of 3 other imagers so we would make it a group trip) but logistically complex, and at the end of the day still prone to problems with weather. Pretty disappointing when you plan the trip for months only to go out and lose the majority of the week to clouds...

One of the aforementioned imagers bought a 2nd home in southern AZ in late 2019, and I have been able to have my gear down there when he is down there. I remotely control it from here in CO. That gives me darker skies than here, better seeing than here, and MANY more hours to image. I have taken more data since the start of 2020 than I had taken previously in the entire time I had been active in the hobby (2009 thru 2019). I am VERY lucky to have found a situation like that. over the next months I hope to set up a bigger mount down there that lets my put both of my OTAs (I also have an Edge HD 8" scope) on the same mount with 2 camera setups. Then I will be able to run both wide field and higher mag targets. Lots of things to still be figured out and worked on to make that a reality though.

I do miss the camaraderie of the group of 4 all together imaging, but on the other hand, sitting here at home in CO with snow falling while I control my gear in AZ taking subframes of some cool target is pretty fun too

Given the 'higher degree of difficulty' inherent in your required way of collecting data I now have an even higher regard for your excellent result presented above!

ML

 

[Bill Richards]

One of the aforementioned imagers bought a 2nd home in southern AZ in late 2019, and I have been able to have my gear down there when he is down there. I remotely control it from here in CO. That gives me darker skies than here, better seeing than here, and MANY more hours to image. I have taken more data since the start of 2020 than I had taken previously in the entire time I had been active in the hobby (2009 thru 2019). I am VERY lucky to have found a situation like that. over the next months I hope to set up a bigger mount down there that lets my put both of my OTAs (I also have an Edge HD 8" scope) on the same mount with 2 camera setups. Then I will be able to run both wide field and higher mag targets. Lots of things to still be figured out and worked on to make that a reality though.

I envy you. I would love to do a multi-night session in the dry desert of AZ or NM with a few other astrophotographers. Sounds like a lot of fun.