I wanted to create an image for Halloween, so I chose a target with a suitable name, the Witch’s Broom Nebula also known as Western Veil or NGC6960. It is a remnant from a supernova which occurred about 10,000 years ago. The ‘veil’ effect is thought to be from gasses encountering interstellar debris, but from our angle of view, we are seeing the side of these gas clouds, from the very thin edge. The darker areas are not empty space, they are dark dust that is blocking out other light sources. A shockwave swept away dust in the areas where we are able to see background stars shine through.

In this image, I actually removed the stars (all but the bright center star, Cygni) to get a better view of the veil itself, a graceful sweeping arc.