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| C33, The East Veil Nebula, Image above cropped and downsized from original. North is to the right. |
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This is the upper eastern side of the huge 3 deg wide Veil
Nebula
- also known as the Cygnus Loop
(click here). This nebula tells the tale of a supernova explosion
that occurred about 10,000 years ago not too far away. 1500 light
years away is close enough for a supernova to have been bright enough to be
easily seen in broad daylight, for at least a couple of weeks. At night it would have been brighter
than the full moon. Now the whole ring is about 80 light years in diameter. You wonder what the
ancients must have thought when they saw this? Maybe
another sun being born? The blue and green colors are mostly oxygen molecules set aglow by the star's shock wave crashing into other interstellar gasses. The reds are hydrogen and sulfur from both the star and the interstellar medium, both being compressed and then glowing red hot. Click here for a view of the Western side of the Veil Nebula. You see it high in the sky on the eastern side of the summer time Milky Way. |
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4" refractor
at f5.3, with modified Canon 40D DSLR camera at Prime Focus |