NGC 6960, 6979, 6992, 6995: The Veil Nebula

Supernova Remnant NGC 6960/6974/6979/6992/6995/IC 1340 (G74.0-8.5) in Cygnus

Veil Nebula, Cygnus SNR, Cygnus Loop

[Veil Nebula, Wallis/Provin]

Right Ascension 20 : 51.0 (h:m)
Declination 30 : 40 (deg:m)
Distance 2.6 (kly)
Visual brightness 5.0 (mag)
Dimension 230 x 160 (arc min)

Discovered on September 5, 1784 by William Herschel.

The image in this page was obtained by (and is courtesy of) Brad Wallis and Robert Provin, exposed 1 hour and 45 minutes on hypered 4x5 inch Kodak Tech Pan, on their 152mm f/7.5 Astro-Physics EDF refractor.

This object is so large (six times the diameter of the Full Moon) that to earlier observers its brighter parts appeared as a number of distinct diffuse nebulae, and were assigned e.g. separate NGC numbers, NGC 6960, NGC 6979, NGC 6992, and NGC 6995; fainter extensions have additional catalog identities: An extension of Northern part NGC 6979 got the designation NGC 6974, and an extension of southwestern NGC 6995 was cataloged as IC 1340. Already William Herschel had them as separate objects: H 2.206 = NGC 6979, H 5.14 = NGC 6992/95, H 5.15 = NGC 6960. The portions of the nebula have also been given a number of nicknames: NGC 6960 was called Filamentary Nebula or Lace-work Nebula, the brightest part of NGC 6979 has got the nickname Pickering's Triangle or Fleming's Triangle, and the complex of NGC 6992 and NGC 6995 is named Network nebula. In above image, they are situated as follows:

Faint luminous material, not cataloged in NGC or IC, can be found throughout the object's extension.

Despite its overall brightness of about mag 5, this object is only visible to the naked eye under exceptionally good viewing conditions, because its light is distributed over the object's large size.

  • Cygnus Loop (G74.0-8.5) data from D.A. Green's Catalogue of Galactic Supernova Remnants
  • Bill Arnett's Veil Nebula page
  • NGC and IC entries from NGC Online: NGC 6960, NGC 6974, NGC 6979, NGC 6992, NGC 6995, IC 1340


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