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NGC 6960 - The Cirrus Nebula in Cygnus
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Copyright 2005 Hap Griffin
The Cirrus Nebula is the western portion of the much larger complex known as the Veil Nebula, seen in a wider view here. It is part of a bubble of expanding gas and dust whose source was a supernova star that exploded in the distant past. The nebula is also sometimes called the "Witch's Broom". The bright star near the center of the nebula is 52 Cygni which actually lies much closer to us at a distance of 204 light years than the nebula itself at a distance of 1400 light years.
Date/Location:
September 3, 2005 Griffin/Hunter
Observatory Bethune, SC
Instrument: Canon 350D (modified) Digital SLR through Orion ED80 w/ Meade
.63 Focal Reducer piggybacked on LX-200
Focal Ratio: Approx. f4.5
Guiding: Auto through LX-200 w/ SBIG ST-237
Conditions: Visually clear
Weather: 65 F, still
Exposure: 100 minutes @ ISO 800 (20 x 5 min exposures) calibrated with flat
frame and Master Dark frame (average of 9 darks)
Filters: Baader UV/IR block
Processing: Focused and captured with DSLRFocus.
RAW to TIFF conversion, frame calibrations, alignment, Digital Development,
Adaptive Richardson_Lucy deconvolution, scaling and JPEG conversion with ImagesPlus.
Color correction with Photoshop 6. Noise reduction with NeatImage.