#i had already posted a photo of the western veil nebula but I used my small colour camera so it wasn't great

[the-maddest-robot]

Photos of the two major components of the veil nebula, the first one is the eastern veil aka C33 and the second one (the one with the star in the middle) the western veil aka C34. Those are part of a supernova remnant (left over gas and dust from a supernova), their colour are due mainly to two gases present inside. The blue/green colour comes mostly from oxygen (as OIII emission around 500nm by doubly ionised oxygen) and a little bit from hydrogen (as H beta emission at 486nm) where as the red comes nearly completely from hydrogen (as H alpha emission at 656nm).

The first photo is about 2.5 hours of exposure (30x3 min for RGB + 10x5 min for H alpha) and the second one about 3 hours (36x3 min for RGB + 16x5 min for H alpha).

The additional photos taken in hydrogen alpha are added to the normal RGB photos to intensify the colour and visibility of the hydrogen gas (it doesn't show well enough with standard RGB in part due to the lower amount of light it emits an in part due to the sensor's response itself) Here is a version of C33 (eastern veil) with the stars removed as my friends were very impressed by it, hope you like it too.