The Veil Nebula is a large supernova remnant - an expanding debris cloud from a star which exploded over 5,000 years ago. It is about 2,600 light years away and covers an area of the sky as large as six times the diameter of the full Moon.
This image is a composite from two black and white images taken with the Palomar Observatory's 48-inch (1.2-meter) Samuel Oschin Telescope as a part of the Second Palomar Observatory Sky Survey. The images were recorded on two glass photographic plates - one sensitive to red light and the other to blue. The plates were scanned and color combined to produce the image seen here.
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