#cygnus loop

NGC 6992

A portion of the Cygnus Loop, this beautiful capture shows the shattered remains of a massive supernova that occurred 10,000-20,000 years ago

The Cygnus Loop - August 3rd, 1997.

The Veil Nebula is interstellar debris from a very large star that violently exploded as a supernova about 15,000 years ago. This photo captures the leading shockwave as it continues to expand.

Astronomers call this Supernova Remnant the “Cygnus Loop”, because it is generally circular and viewed in the constellation of Cygnus the Swan. It is nearby at only 2,400 light years, and situated right in our own galactic spiral arm, making our image very crowded with nearby stars.

In this photo, we are looking at the outer edge of the Cygnus Loop debris field that appears facing towards the west. Note the colours: red is hydrogen, blue suggests oxygen, and sulfur is green.

A “Supernova” explosion occurs when an older star depletes fuel and begins to falter at generating a strong stellar wind. As the outward-push falters, gravity causes the aging star to catastrophically implode as a supernova. Indeed, the colours of blue and green suggest the presence of heavier elements, oxygen and sulphur, as formed in the core of older stars.

I photographed the Western Veil Nebula from my garden in Strasbourg France on a single night in August 2024. This is an ensemble of 80 photos, where each was a 3 minute exposure (4 hours of Astrophotography).

More information:

The Bat Nebula NGC 6995

The human brain just can't help itself, it's a bat right ? one that's 1,400 light years away, and 12 light years across and made from mostly hydrogen gas and dust, both reacting to UV light in emissions red, and in this filter, the blue is oxygen emissions.

The whole structure is part of a much larger area known as the Veil Nebula.

You can spot the bat on the left hand side, while the broom stick is across to the other side, of what looks like a spherical nebula.

A quick and (very) dirty mosaic of the H alpha photos I had already taken for the three major components of the Cygnus loop.

I wanted to have an idea of what a future mosaic of this target could look like (probably won't be able to do better than that before the end of the year or next summer unfortunately)