We are nearly at Halloween and I have some Astro-images to share…
Halloween is one of the “cross-quarter points” in the calendar, six months from May Day, and roughly half way between the Autumnal equinox and the winter solstice.
It is also the time for Witches to be flying around on their brooms.
The image shown is the “Western Veil Nebula”, and the feature at top is known as the “Witch’s broom” (there is a bright star where the witch would sit). This image (captured October 6 2021) has been processed to remove nearly all the stars so we see the nebulosity more clearly. As seen from the Earth the Veil Nebula lies in the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, so there should be a very dense star field in this direction.
The Veil Nebula is actually much scarier than a Witch’s Broom. It is the remnant of a supernova, a star that was initially 20 times bigger than our Sun. It exploded with incredible violence over 10,000 years ago. At a distance of 2400 light years it is nearby in comparison with other Milky Way objects but not as close as the Orion Nebula (1300 light years). When this star exploded it would have appeared brighter than Venus or any other planet and would have been visible in the daytime.
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