The Cygnus Loop

This region of the sky is known as the Cygnus Loop because of it's location in the constellation Cygnus. The image is composed of a supernova remnant, the Veil Nebula. It is 2600 LY distant and is 120 LY in diameter. (NASA)

A doomed super massive star exploded 20,000 years ago. The remnants since have expanded to form the filamentary structure visible in the image. (NASA)

The Eastern Veil Nebula (NGC 6992, NGC 6995) is the structure at the bottom of the image.

The Western Veil Nebula (NGC 6960) is the filamentary structure arching across the top of the image.

Pickering's Triangle is the structure just below the Western Veil Nebula, the central filamentary region.

This image is a narrowband image. It enhances the nebulas contribution of H-alpha, OIII, and SII.

The table below shows the color assignments for the narrowband images.

Color --> Narrowband

Red --> H-alpha

Blue --> OIII

Yellow --> SII

Stars were produced from the H-alpha and OIII images.

The purpose of this Narrowband image is to show the composition of the supernova remnant. The ejection of the stars atmosphere pushes the gas outward. Hydrogen compared to oxygen and sulfur is very light. Therefore, oxygen (blue) and sulfur (yellow) compose the inner part of the nebula. Hydrogen (red) is located beyond the filaments of the nebula.

Image processed by Andrew Macica, original data from Telescope Live.

Imaging Details:

Observatory: IC Astronomy Observatory, Oria, Almería, Spain

Telescope: Takahashi FSQ-106EDX4

Aperture: 106 mm, w/ 0.73x focal reducer, f/3.6

Focal Length: 382 mm

Camera: FLI ProLine PL16803 CCD

Filters: H-alpha, OIII, SII

Total Exposure: 22 hours 20 minutes

Image Processing:

PixInsight 1.8.9-3 Ripley (x64);

BlurXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, StarXTerminator (RC Astro);

Adobe Photoshop 25.12.4;

Adobe Lightroom Classic 15.0.1

Instruction on PixInsight from Adam Block Studios.