The Witch’s Broom Nebula (NGC 6960), located in the constellation Cygnus, is part of the vast Veil Nebula or Cygnus Loop complex. This is a supernova remnant—the aftermath of a massive star that spewed its enriched material into the cosmic soup. You are looking at the western portion of this complex.
The statistics are mind-boggling: the entire structure covers over 110 light-years and spans six full moons worth of sky. The mother star exploded five to ten thousand years ago. I bet that was quite a sight for our ancestors!
I love the gossamer filaments visible here. Unlike reflection nebulae that are lit by stars, these filaments glow due to massive shockwaves crashing into interstellar gas, ionizing it into the lovely blues and reds you see here. The bright star visible in the frame is 52 Cygni—a foreground star that isn’t actually part of the nebula but adds a beautiful anchor to the image.
Technical Details: This image was captured with 12 hours of total exposure time over a couple of nights. I used RGB filters to capture the broadband colors and a luminance filter to resolve the exquisite detail of the broom’s structure. Individual exposures were aligned and stacked, then further processed to enhance contrast and color fidelity.