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Honors for Expert-Like

The Veil Nebula

I took this photo in Pittsburgh PA at the Allegheny Observatory, which is run by the University of Pittsburgh. I took it on the Keeler telescope which is a 24-inch plain wave reflector telescope. Reflector telescopes use concave mirrors to collect and focus light to a focal point creating images of celestial bodies. The celestial body depicted in this image is the Veil Nebula, which is a segment of the Cygnus loop constellation. The nebula was created as a result of a star that went supernova over 8000 years ago. To collect this specific image, I took flat frames, bias frames, and photos of the nebula in Hα (red), OIII (blue), and G (green) filters. The flat frames are used during processing to cancel out dust specks that could be on the telescope lens, and the bias frames are used to cancel out any noise that is within the pixels. I took multiple photos in each color filter, and using the AstroImageJ program, I layered them into three stacks with the flats and biases corrected. I took these stacked images to Photopea, layered the stacks, and brought out each of the specific colors within their respective stacks. I used this image to track the expansion of the nebula over the past 100 years and focused my research on the lower portion of the nebula.