NGC 6960 - Witch's Broom in Bicolor

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NGC 6960, the Witch’s Broom, in a bicolor hydrogen/oxygen palette. A 2003 grayscale attempt and a wide-field full-complex color mosaic are also on file. This image is also covered in a blog post.

Location: Comanche Springs Astronomy Campus

Date: June 2018

Scope/Mount: 12.5" RCOS RC on a Paramount ME

Camera: FLI PL-16803

Filters: AstroDon 3nm spectral band filters (Ha, OIII)

Exposure Info: Bicolor image, 2 hours total data (1 hour ionized hydrogen, 1 hour ionized oxygen)

Processing Information: Bicolor palette -- hydrogen (H-alpha) data mapped to the red channel, oxygen (OIII) data mapped to the blue channel, and a 70/30 percent blend of OIII and H-alpha respectively assigned to the green channel.

Extra Notes: Data found on the Conley Observatory server at the Three Rivers Foundation, taken with students during the week-long "Astrophysics in a Nutshell" course.

About this Image

This is an image of NGC 6960, the western portion of the Veil Nebula. Known as the "Witch's Broom" or "Finger of God," among other names, this is only a small part of a larger complex of a supernova remnant; an exploded star. This intricate display of hydrogen and oxygen gases is centered around the star 52 Cygni, not the star that originally "blew up."

Honestly, I didn't think much of the data at first, since we are now so conditioned to going long with our images. So, instead of aiming for a polished image, I merely passed it off as a part of the learning with our students. Certainly, more exposure time could bring out more of the faint background gases and clean up the image a little better, but processing it like this just goes to show that not everything needs hours of exposure time.

🤖 AI-drafted · unverified

What it is: NGC 6960, nicknamed the "Witch's Broom" or "Filamentary Nebula," is the western arc of the Veil Nebula, the expanding wreckage of a star that exploded as a supernova an estimated 10,000–20,000 years ago.
Constellation: Cygnus
Distance: ~2,400 light-years
Apparent magnitude: ~7
Angular size: ~70 × 6 arcminutes
Coordinates: RA 20h 45m, Dec +30° 43′

This summary was generated by an AI assistant from general astronomical references, not from Jay's own notes on this specific image. Treat every detail above as a starting point for research, not settled fact.