NGC 6960, NGC 6992 and Pickering's Triangle

 

The Veil Nebula is a cloud of heated and ionized gas and dust in the constellation Cygnus.^[4]

It constitutes the visible portions of the Cygnus Loop,^[5] a supernova remnant, 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 between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago.^[2] At the time of explosion, the supernova would have appeared brighter than Venus in the sky, and visible in daytime.^[6] The remnants have since expanded to cover an area of the sky roughly 3 degrees in diameter (about 6 times the diameter, and 36 times the area, of the full Moon).^[4] While previous distance estimates have ranged from 1200 to 5800 light-years, a recent determination of 2400 light-years is based on direct astrometric measurements.^[2] (The distance estimates affect also the estimates of size and age.)

·         The Western Veil (also known as Caldwell 34), consisting of NGC 6960 (the "Witch's Broom",^[12] Lacework Nebula,^[8] "Filamentary Nebula"^[12]) near the foreground star 52 Cygni;

·         The Eastern Veil (also known as Caldwell 33), whose brightest area is NGC 6992, trailing off farther south into NGC 6995 (together with NGC 6992 also known as "Network Nebula"^[13]) and IC 1340; and

·         Pickering's Triangle (or Pickering's Triangular Wisp), brightest at the north central edge of the loop, but visible in photographs continuing toward the central area of the loop.

The image data was taken at Okie-Tex 2021 near Kenton, Oklahoma.  The above image has NGC 6960 upper left, NGC6992 lower left, upper right, and Pickering's Triangle, lower center, captured with a one shot color camera a StarLight Xpress SXVR M 25C.  The image is made of 30 ten-minute exposures using AstroArt 7 then calibrated, combined and processed using AstroArt8.  The camera was mounted to a AstroTech AT72ED refractor.  The guiding setup was a ZWO ASI120 attached to a SVBONY SV106 guide scope piggybacked on the AT72ED.  The imaging setup was mounted on an Astro Physics AP900.  Guiding software was PHD2.  

NGC 7000 and IC 5070 - North American Nebula and Pelican Nebula

 

The North America Nebula (NGC 7000 or Caldwell 20) is an emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus, close to Deneb (the tail of the swan and its brightest star). The shape of the nebula resembles that of the continent of North America, complete with a prominent Gulf of Mexico.

On October 24, 1786, William Herschel observing from Slough, England, noted a “faint milky nebulosity scattered over this space, in some places pretty bright.” ^[4] The most prominent region was catalogued by his son John Herschel on August 21, 1829. It was listed in the New General Catalogue as NGC 7000, where it is described as a "faint, most extremely large, diffuse nebulosity.” ^[5]

In 1890, the pioneering German astrophotographer Max Wolf noticed this nebula's characteristic shape on a long-exposure photograph, and dubbed it the North America Nebula.^[6]

In his study of nebulae on the Palomar Sky Survey plates in 1959, American astronomer Stewart Sharpless realised that the North America Nebula is part of the same interstellar cloud of ionized hydrogen (H II region) as the Pelican Nebula, separated by a dark band of dust, and listed the two nebulae together in his second list of 313 bright nebulae as Sh2-117. American astronomer Beverly T. Lynds catalogued the obscuring dust cloud as L935 in her 1962 compilation of dark nebulae. Dutch radio astronomer Gart Westerhout detected the HII region Sh2-117 as a strong radio emitter, 3° across, and it appears as W80 in his 1958 catalogue of radio sources in the band of the Milky Way.^[7]

The Pelican Nebula (also known as IC 5070 and IC 5067^[1]) is an H II region associated with the North America Nebula in the constellation Cygnus. The gaseous contortions of this emission nebula bear a resemblance to a pelican, giving rise to its name.^[1] The Pelican Nebula is located nearby first magnitude star Deneb, and is divided from its more prominent neighbour, the North America Nebula, by a foreground molecular cloud filled with dark dust.^[2] Both are part of the larger H II region of Westerhout 40.^[2]

The Pelican is much studied because it has a particularly active mix of star formation and evolving gas clouds. The light from young energetic stars is slowly transforming cold gas to hot and causing an ionization front gradually to advance outward. Particularly dense filaments of cold gas are seen to still remain, and among these are found two jets emitted from the Herbig–Haro object 555.^[1] Millions of years from now this nebula might no longer be known as the Pelican, as the balance and placement of stars and gas will leave something that appears completely different.

  The image data was taken at Okie-Tex 2021 near Kenton, Oklahoma.  The above image has NGC 7000, center, and IC5070 upper right, captured with a one shot color camera a StarLight Xpress SXVR M 25C.  The image is made of 48 five-minute exposures using AstroArt 7 then calibrated, combined and processed using AstroArt8.  The camera was mounted to a AstroTech AT72ED refractor.  The guiding setup was a ZWO ASI120 attached to a SVBONY SV106 guide scope piggybacked on the AT72ED.  The imaging setup was mounted on an Astro Physics AP900.  Guiding software was PHD2.  

IC 1805 and NGC 896 - Heart Nebula

The Heart Nebula, IC 1805, Sharpless 2-190, is some 7500 light years away from Earth and is located in the Perseus Arm of the Galaxy in the constellation Cassiopeia. It was discovered by William Herschel on 3 November 1787. It is an emission nebula showing glowing ionized hydrogen gas and darker dust lanes. The brightest part of the nebula (a knot at its western edge) is separately classified as NGC 896, because it was the first part of the nebula to be discovered. The nebula's intense red output and its morphology are driven by the radiation emanating from a small group of stars near the nebula's center. This open cluster of stars, known as Collinder 26 or Melotte 15, contains a few bright stars nearly 50 times the mass of our Sun, and many more dim stars that are only a fraction of our Sun's mass.

The Heart Nebula is also made up of ionised Oxygen and Sulfur gasses, responsible for the rich blue and orange colours seen in narrowband images. The shape of the nebula is driven by stellar winds from the hot stars in its core. The nebula also spans almost 2 degrees in the sky, covering an area four times that of the diameter of the full moon.

The image data was taken at Okie-Tex 2021 near Kenton, Oklahoma.  The above image has IC1805, center, and NGC896, upper right, captured with a one shot color camera a StarLight Xpress SXVR M 25C.  The image is made of 24 ten-minute exposures using AstroArt 7 then calibrated, combined and processed using AstroArt8.  The camera was mounted to a AstroTech AT72ED refractor.  The guiding setup was a ZWO ASI120 attached to a SVBONY SV106 guide scope piggybacked on the AT72ED.  The imaging setup was mounted on an Astro Physics AP900.  Guiding software was PHD2.  

 

Astro-Physics AP900 Set Up

 

 

The AP900 was purchased in March of 2020 and picked up in Arizona.  The AP900 came with a CP4 controller but no pedestal.  The pedestal was purchased from Washington state with 2 pipes.  This is the short one.  The imaging scope is an Astro Tech AT6RC with a StarLight Express SXVR-M25C camera.  The guide scope is a 80mm f7 refractor of unknown origin with a Meade DSI Pro camera.  The location is Rusty's RV Park in Rodeo, NM.