The Veil Nebula | Filaments of The Cygnus Loop: Image 5 | WIYN Telescope

The Veil Nebula | Filaments of The Cygnus Loop: Image 5 | WIYN Telescope

This image was obtained with the wide-field view of the Mosaic camera on the WIYN 0.9-meter telescope at Kitt Peak, Arizona. It shows NGC 6960—faint filaments that are part of a large supernova remnant (SNR) called the Cygnus Loop. These are the remains of a star that exploded 5,000 to 10,000 years ago. The original supernova would have been bright enough to be seen clearly from Earth with the naked eye. The star—that was 20 times the mass of the Sun—lived fast and died young, ending its life in a cataclysmic release of energy. The distance to it is estimated at about 1,500 light years. The bright star near the center of the image, known as 52 Cygnus, is not associated with the supernova.

The Cygnus Loop (radio source W78, or Sharpless 103), located in the constellation Cygnus, is an emission nebula measuring nearly 3° across. Arcs of the loop, known collectively as the Veil Nebula or Cirrus Nebula, emit in the visible electromagnetic range. Radio, infrared, and X-ray images reveal the complete loop. The Cygnus Loop extends over three times the size of the full moon in the night sky, and is tucked next to one of the “swan’s wings” in the constellation of Cygnus.

The color image was generated by combining data from narrowband filters; data from H-alpha was assigned a red color, [OIII] is blue, and [SII] is green. North is to the left and east is down.

The WIYN Consortium, led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Indiana University, are operational responsible for the historic 0.9-meter (36-inch) WIYN Telescope at the National Science Foundation's Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO).

Image Credit: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage) and WIYN/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA

Release Date: June 30, 2020

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