The Veil Supernova Remnant is a popular target shot in Cygnus every Summer and Autumn for the Northern Hemisphere imagers. This nebula is the result of a star that exploded some ~9,000 years ago and it is around 2,400 light years away. Currently it fills a space about 110 light years wide and is expanding at roughly 50km/s. Visually, the brighter Eastern (left) and Western (right) sections of this nebula appear as ghostly grey tendrils through a decent telescope, though it requires decently dark skies, and an Oiii (Oxygen) filter can also be helpful to isolate better contrast.
I shot this target in pursuit of a True Color image from September 1st through Christmas, gathering about 350 hours along the way, 326 of which survived the cut and made it to the final stack (just over 13 solid days of exposure time). Many shoot this nebula in False Color (or Bicolor, which can approximate natural color in limited ways), primarily capturing Hydrogen-alpha and Oxygen wavelengths followed by some broadband (color) work at the end for the stars. Unfortunately, this means a lot of the brown-orange and blue-grey background dust is not captured with good Signal to Noise ratios, and that was my goal. I dumped a significant amount of time into color (LRGB), though of course I also captured narrowband along the way – the usualy H-alpha and Oiii, but also H-beta since this allowed me to better approximate the true color ratios of Hydrogen (which overall is a Magenta, but the Alpha filter only captures the more common Red wavelength).
Full resolution is available on [my website](https://www.astronewton.com/veil-2025) (along with all my other work) where I have also posted a regular LRGB shot (no Narrowband included) for comparison, starless versions, annotations, and an HOO False Color mix in the blue/gold pallet. My workflow is fully listed on my [Astrobin Entry](https://app.astrobin.com/?i=oe3scg) as well.
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The Veil Supernova Remnant is a popular target shot in Cygnus every Summer and Autumn for the Northern Hemisphere imagers. This nebula is the result of a star that exploded some ~9,000 years ago and it is around 2,400 light years away. Currently it fills a space about 110 light years wide and is expanding at roughly 50km/s. Visually, the brighter Eastern (left) and Western (right) sections of this nebula appear as ghostly grey tendrils through a decent telescope, though it requires decently dark skies, and an Oiii (Oxygen) filter can also be helpful to isolate better contrast.
I shot this target in pursuit of a True Color image from September 1st through Christmas, gathering about 350 hours along the way, 326 of which survived the cut and made it to the final stack (just over 13 solid days of exposure time). Many shoot this nebula in False Color (or Bicolor, which can approximate natural color in limited ways), primarily capturing Hydrogen-alpha and Oxygen wavelengths followed by some broadband (color) work at the end for the stars. Unfortunately, this means a lot of the brown-orange and blue-grey background dust is not captured with good Signal to Noise ratios, and that was my goal. I dumped a significant amount of time into color (LRGB), though of course I also captured narrowband along the way – the usualy H-alpha and Oiii, but also H-beta since this allowed me to better approximate the true color ratios of Hydrogen (which overall is a Magenta, but the Alpha filter only captures the more common Red wavelength).
Full resolution is available on [my website](https://www.astronewton.com/veil-2025) (along with all my other work) where I have also posted a regular LRGB shot (no Narrowband included) for comparison, starless versions, annotations, and an HOO False Color mix in the blue/gold pallet. My workflow is fully listed on my [Astrobin Entry](https://app.astrobin.com/?i=oe3scg) as well.
**Equipment:**
– TS Optics 86mm Petzval (459mm Focal Length, F/5.4)
– ZWO ASI6200MM-P, Antlia LRGB, HA, Oiii, Baader Hβ
– AstroPhysics Mach2GTO Mount
**Exposures:**
– Lum, Red, Green, Blue: 401, 367, 363, 376 x 300”
– 3nm HA, 3nm OIII, 8.5nm Hβ: 422, 427, 356 x 600”
**Misc Details:**
– Software: N.I.N.A. (capture), PHD2 (guiding), AstroPixelProcessor (Mosaic), PixInsight (Calibration and Post)
– Location: Starfront Observatories, TX, Bortle 1ish