The beautiful remains of a stellar explosion, captured from my back garden in Warrington, UK, under Bortle 7 light-polluted skies.

Also known as the Witch’s Broom Nebula , NGC 6960 is part of the much larger Veil Nebula complex in the constellation Cygnus (The Swan).

💫 A few fascinating facts:

🔭 Distance: Approximately 2,400 light-years from Earth.

💥 Origin: The expanding debris of a massive star that exploded as a supernova around 10,000–20,000 years ago.

🌌 Size: The entire Veil Nebula complex spans roughly 110 light-years across, covering an area of sky approximately six times the diameter of the full Moon.

⭐ 52 Cygni: The bright star appearing within the Western Veil is actually a foreground star, unrelated to the supernova remnant.

🎨 Those incredible colours: The glowing red filaments are primarily ionised hydrogen, while the delicate blue-green structures trace doubly ionised oxygen.…