This is a close-up of the eastern part of the veil nebula I imaged previously in full scale. (North is left.)

The nebula is the remnant of an ancient cascade of supernovae that exploded a couple of tens of thousands years ago. You may notice the fine detail in the nebulosity and the colour contrast betwen the outer and the inner parts of the shell. The bluish-green parts glow in the light of ionized oxygen, the red parts in the light of ionized hydrogen. The delicate structures within the nebula indicate the presence of strong interstellar magnetic fields along which the charged particles align.

I did some improvement on my instrumentation in summer 2009. I replaced the focuser and got myself a focusing tool allowing to achieve optimal focus within less than 5 minutes. Now the star definition is really satisfying and close to the optimum of what is to be expected from a 6" newtonian telescope in the 300€-range. Mind the fact that the atmospheric conditions in that night were far from optimal. Clouds and mist came and went, so I was extremely lucky to capture less than 2 hours of exposure when I spent 6 hours waiting for opportunities to do so.