![[Veil E]](/image_gallery/images/d5/veileb.jpg)
An eastern portion of the Veil Nebula (Cygnus Loop).
Downloadable versions (see
NOAO Conditions of Use):
Location: 20h 56m 24s +31deg 43min (1950.0), constellation of Cygnus.
Distance: around 2500 light-years.
This image was made by combining a number of exposures taken
on the night of July 15th 1996,
with a 2048x2048 CCD detector at the Burrell Schmidt telescope
of the Warner and Swasey Observatory of Case Western Reserve
University (CWRU), situated on Kitt Peak in southern Arizona.
These observations were made during the telescope training part of
the Research Experience for
Undergraduates (REU) program operated by NOAO/Tucson and
funded by the National Science Foundation.
See also this western section
of the nebula.
Minimum credit line: N.A.Sharp, REU program/NOAO/AURA/NSF
(for details see Conditions of Use)
400 x 598 120 kb color JPEG
1366 x 2042 1.0 Mb color JPEG
1366 x 2042 2.7 Mb 8-bit color TIFF
1366 x 2042 8.1 Mb 24-bit color TIFF
The Veil nebula, also known as the Cygnus Loop, is an enormous region of
diffuse gas emission, covering several degrees on the sky.
Although this image is over a degree across (more than 40 light-years),
using the full wide-field capability of the Schmidt telescope,
it still shows only the north-eastern segment (NGC6992/5) of the
entire object (over 100 light-years in width).
The nebula is the remnant of a supernova explosion which occurred more
than 20000 years ago.
It consists mostly of interstellar matter swept up by the
material flung off by the exploding star, and it still shines because of
excitation due to the collision between this expanding shock
wave and the interstellar medium.
The Veil nebula also emits X-rays, although they
are weaker than those from younger supernova remnants such as
Cassiopeia A, since the shock loses energy as it plows through its
surroundings.
Supernova explosions are perhaps the most spectacular events in our
Galaxy, occurring when a star throws off its outer layers at speeds of
ten to twenty thousand kilometers per second,
leaving behind sometimes nothing, sometimes a shriveled
remnant neutron star, or sometimes even a totally collapsed black hole.
Return to:
nebulae page,
emission nebulae page.
Comments by e-mail to images@noao.edu
