NGC 6960 – The Witch’s Broom Nebula

October 2025

This image centers on NGC 6960, the Western Veil Nebula, with the bright foreground star 52 Cygni embedded in the glowing filaments of the Cygnus Loop supernova remnant. The structures here are the shock-excited debris of a massive star that exploded roughly 10,000–20,000 years ago, its blast wave still racing outward and sculpting the surrounding interstellar medium. In the classic Hubble SHO palette: SII emission appears as gold and amber, tracing denser, slower-cooling gas OIII emission shines in electric blues and violets along the leading shock fronts Ha fills in additional structure throughout the nebula The frame (shown in portrait orientation) follows the sweeping “broom” of NGC 6960 as multiple overlapping filaments curl and twist around 52 Cygni. Even the faint strands crossing the lower part of the image are part of the same expanding shell, one small section of a bubble nearly 130 light-years across.