Nebula · Cygnus

NGC 6960 (Witch’s Broom Nebula)

Over the last few days I’ve shared my images of the Western Veil and then the Eastern Veil, but this is the result I’ve really been working towards — a much wider mosaic bringing a huge section of the Veil Nebula complex together in one image. This was captured with my Seestar S30 Pro from my small back garden in Bradford, made from 604 individual 20-second exposures — just over 3 hours and 21 minutes of actual imaging time. Getting here has involved a ridiculous amount of learning, stacking, mosaicking, gradient removal and processing, but I’m finally starting to feel like all those hours fighting with astrophotography software are paying off! 😂 What amazes me most is just how much incredibly faint structure is hiding in this part of the sky. The red and blue-green filaments are the remains of a massive supernova explosion, spread across an enormous area in the constellation Cygnus. Considering this was all captured from a little garden under the light-polluted skies of Bradford, I’m absolutely chuffed with it. Definitely my favourite astrophotography project so far.

Processing notes
Captured with a Seestar S30 Promade from 604 individual 20-second exposures — just over 3 hours and 21 minutes of actual imaging time.. The image has been balanced to retain the faint filamentary structure of the nebula while preserving the surrounding star field. No additional processing software was specified in the supplied metadata.