Capturing the celestial cataclysm
The Veil Nebula Complex offers tremendous rewards for deep-sky imaging. Here are our top tips for photographing its sprawling majesty
Follow the stars
Because it’s relatively faint, you’ll need to mount any camera and optics you use to image the Veil Nebula Complex on a tracking platform that enables long-exposure imaging. How good a mount you’ll need will depend on the focal length of the optics you’re using, but a basic motorised equatorial model that’s been properly polar-aligned should be fine for capturing several-minute exposures using a short focal-length refractor or telephoto camera lens.
Gather stacks of data
The key to acquiring high-quality deepsky images – especially of faint, nebulous targets like those in the Veil Complex – is to capture many individual sub-exposures and then calibrate and stack them. This will create a final image that has a better signal-to-noise ratio with a ‘smoother’ (less noisy) background. And it’ll mean that you can push the image harder when ‘stretching’ it in an image-editing program. If you’re new to imaging, the free software DeepSkyStacker is a good place to start.
Sense the supernova remnant
It’s possible to capture the Veil Nebula using a DSLR camera, but this is tricky with light pollution. Astronomical CCD and CMOS cameras are designed to be sensitive to the wavelengths of light emitted by nebulae and when used with a good set of imaging filters can produce spectacular photos. The Veil Complex is a great target for so-called ‘narrowband’ imaging where specialist filters are used to collect light from specific gases – in the Witch's Broom these are typically hydrogen and oxygen.