Date: Sept 24, 2009
Location: Victoria Centre Observatory, Observatory Hill, Victoria, BC, Canada

The Veil Nebula is a large object located just under Cygnus' eastern wing, and is the result of what must have been a cataclysmic supernova. The shock waves are lighting up huge expanses of gas in this region.

This photo shows the Western Veil in the lower right corner of the photo, the Easter Veil in the middle of the frame, as well as the central portion of the Veil Nebula. Several of the beautiful bright stars in Cygnus also appear in this photo, as well as the dark region beside the Western Veil.

Equipment: Hutech-modified Canon XTi dSLR & 70-200 f/4 zoom lens operating at f/5 fl=100mm mounted on an Astrotrac. IDAS LPS light pollution filter used.
Exposures: 68 x 2 minute at ISO 800
Conditions: Temperature 16°C, no dew, LVM 5.0, Transparency 5/5, Steadiness 5/5, clear skies

Processing:
ImagesPlus 3.75 - Auto-process - digital development from raw, dark & bias frame calibration, normalize, grading, alignment, average min/max exclude combine. Very aggressive contrast stretch (BP 627, Bkgd 0), colour balance correction.
ACDSee Pro 2.5: crop, resize, moderate contrast stretch, colour correction, colour depth reduction to 24 bit, save as jpg.