NGC 6992 — The Eastern Veil Nebula
Captured with: Seestar S50 Smart Telescope
Distance: ~2,400 light-years
Constellation: Cygnus
Type: Supernova Remnant
Apparent Size: ~70 arcminutes
The Eastern Veil Nebula is the luminous edge of a massive expanding shell of gas — the remains of a star that exploded between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago. This cosmic debris cloud, known as the Cygnus Loop, stretches over three degrees across the sky, more than six times the apparent diameter of the full Moon.
Through the Seestar S50, NGC 6992 appears as a web of delicate, intertwined filaments glowing red from ionized hydrogen and blue-green from doubly ionized oxygen. These colors trace the shock waves from the ancient supernova as they race through surrounding interstellar gas, energizing it into fluorescence.
Each glowing strand marks the front line of an expanding blast still moving at hundreds of kilometers per second. Though the violence that created it has long faded, the nebula remains an exquisite record of stellar death and rebirth — where the elements forged in the star’s core are cast into space to seed new generations of stars and planets.
The Eastern Veil is a reminder that beauty often follows catastrophe — a stellar afterimage painted in light and time.