The “Witch’s Broom”
As Halloween draws closer, this seems like an appropriate object to image: the “Witch’s Broom” nebula! Although to be honest, that bright star (Cygnus 56) looks more like an eye on some sort of fantastical, cosmic creature to me.
In reality, it’s part of the larger Veil Nebula, which is a huge supernova remnant 1,400 light-years away. Below are two takes at processing this image; the first is uses narrowband data that captures light emissions from specific elements, and the second is a “true color” image.
