Eastern Veil Nebula

Hi all,

This is my longest astrophotography project to date.

The Veil Nebula is a cloud of heated and ionized gas and dust in the constellation Cygnus.

It constitutes the visible portions of the Cygnus Loop, a many portions of which have acquired their own individual names and catalogue identifiers. The source supernova was a star 20 times more massive than the Sun, which exploded around 8,000 years ago. The remnants have since expanded to cover an area of the sky roughly 3 degrees in diameter (about 6 times the diameter, or 36 times the area, of the full Moon). The distance to the nebula is not precisely known, but Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) data supports a distance of about 1,470 light years.

Integration:
15 hours, 50 minutes of total exposure time
274 Light Frames of 3, 4 and 5 minutes.
ISO 200
No Darks (Dithered)
200 Bias Frames
25 Flats Per Session

Equipment:
Telescope: William Optics Zenithstar 73
Mount: Sky-Watcher HEQ5 Pro Rowan Belt Mod
Autoguiding Scope: Starwave 50mm Guidescope
Autoguiding Camera: ZWO ASI 120MM Mini
Camera: Canon 80D (unmodified)

Software:
PHD2 Guiding
Astrophotography Tool
Deepskystacker
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Lightroom

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/2hsF​ULS

That's a great result, Joel!

That's a great image and 15 hours in shot time wow.

Just watched your video on YT , very nice . You have some great equip in your setup also . How long have you been into amateur astronomy ? Your image is very nice and the stars are right on point . Color is good also .

andicus wrote in post #18941440
That's a great result, Joel!

Thanks very much.

roycobb4570 wrote in post #18941631
That's a great image and 15 hours in shot time wow.

Thanks, yes definitely my longest photography project thus far.

Celestron wrote in post #18941822
Just watched your video on YT , very nice . You have some great equip in your setup also . How long have you been into amateur astronomy ? Your image is very nice and the stars are right on point . Color is good also .

Thanks very much. Been into astrophotography for coming up to two years now.

Wow that’s a short time ! Looking at your equipment and image i would have thought maybe at least 5-10 yrs under your belt . Are you self taught or did you have friends help or star show visits ?

Celestron wrote in post #18941872
Wow that’s a short time ! Looking at your equipment and image i would have thought maybe at least 5-10 yrs under your belt . Are you self taught or did you have friends help or star show visits ?

Thanks. No, completely self taught. Never been to a star party but there's a good one in the UK at a place called Kelling Heath, so I might pop along there one year.

Well when I say self taught I mean I've had no one around to show me how to do things but I have learned a fair bit by asking stuff on forums and watching youtube videos.

smurkej wrote in post #18941883
Thanks. No, completely self taught. Never been to a star party but there's a good one in the UK at a place called Kelling Heath, so I might pop along there one year.

Well when I say self taught I mean I've had no one around to show me how to do things but I have learned a fair bit by asking stuff on forums and watching youtube videos.

Then you being from the UK you should know about this forum : https://stargazersloun​ge.com/ . Great place to visit and get info !

That is AWESOME! I am trying to learn....and seeing your post says unmodified camera - seeing a lot about astro mods - how do you get the reds to come through? Thanks!

Celestron wrote in post #18941933
Then you being from the UK you should know about this forum : https://stargazersloun​ge.com/ . Great place to visit and get info !

Yes I'm on there. Great forum.

Nehrke wrote in post #18941967
That is AWESOME! I am trying to learn....and seeing your post says unmodified camera - seeing a lot about astro mods - how do you get the reds to come through? Thanks!

Thanks! Yes my Canon80D is unmodified but that doesn't mean it can't pick up Hydrogen Alpha. I find that it's not so much the colour but the structure that is harder to pick up. But the key is SNR and improving that as much as you can, basically by stacking more photos to improve the SNR, the more the better.

With regards to the reds a lot of that comes through using the saturation and vibrance with careful colour balancing.

Nehrke wrote in post #18941967
That is AWESOME! I am trying to learn....and seeing your post says unmodified camera - seeing a lot about astro mods - how do you get the reds to come through? Thanks!

You don't have to have a mod camera to get these results . In the OPs' first post he tells info on exposures taken . The trick to any astrophotography is taking multiple frames and stacking . Plus his explosures were from 2-5 mins so each frame collects a lot of data giving great images from final stacked image plus what editing with software he did .