NGC 6559 and NGC 6992 mark the eastern portion of the Veil nebula. This is also the brightest section of the nebula. In a 12" telescope, the amount of fine detail in this portion of the nebula makes for very interesting viewing.

Combination of 2, 20 minute exposures. Kodak Ektachrome Elite 400 slide film.
5" f/5 refractor at prime focus.

Combination of 10, 120 second images. Modified Canon Digital Rebel DSLR camera.
5" f/5 refractor at prime focus.

Combination of 11, 1 minute exposures, SBIG ST8XE CCD.
300mm f/3.5 Tamron zoom lens at 150mm focal length.

Combination of 10, 3 minute images each using red, green and blue filters.
SBIG ST-9XE CCD. 5" f/5 refractor at prime focus.

Combination of 10, 3 minute images each using red, green and blue filters.
SBIG ST-8XE CCD. 5" f/5 refractor at prime focus.

120 minutes using an H-alpha filter and 3 minute sub-exposures.
SBIG ST8-XE CCD. 5" f/5 refractor at prime focus.

NGC 6559 is the eastern portion of the Veil nebula. This image shows the value of a narrow-band filter. It was taken under severely light-polluted skies and with a near full Moon in the sky!

Combination of the above H-alpha image and 60 minutes red, 60 minutes green, 60 minutes blue, using 3 minute sub-exposures.
SBIG ST8-XE CCD. 5" f/5 refractor at prime focus.

In the above image, the H-alpha image was used as the luminance layer. One problem with using a bright luminance layer is that the colour data becomes very muted and washed out. There are a number of ways to minimise this. In the next image, the H-alpha data has been used as the red channel. The result is a much richer colour.