GigaVeil: 1 billion pixels, 300 hours, 35 panels, and 5 contributors on the Veil Nebula

Image Title: GigaVeil: 1 billion pixels, 300 hours, 35 panels, and 5 contributors on the Veil Nebula

Copyright: Gavin Bent, Brian Nietfeld, Hunter Outten, Kaleb Jordan, Stan Williams

Date image was taken: August 13, 2026

Location: Laurel, Delaware
Brady, Texas
Houston, TX

Data Acquisition Method: Shared Community Data

Description and Details: GigaVeil: 1 billion pixels, 300 hours, 35 panels, and 5 contributors on the Veil Nebula
by GB Astronomy, Brian Nietfeld, Hunter Outten, Kaleb Jordan, Stan Williams

The Veil Nebula is a complex that can be beautiful at all focal lengths. With narrow FOVs, you can get beautifully detailed shots of small regions like the witch’s broom or Pickering’s triangle. At wider FOVs, you can capture the whole complex, another beautiful shot. However, one thing that is rarely done is to combine the two, creating a massive mosaic to get the whole complex in detail.

This project is the culmination of that idea: A 35 panel, 1 gigapixel mosaic of the whole Cygnus Loop to capture all that detail. Not only that, but it also includes over 200 hours of a 9 panel mosaic, a 2 panel mosaic, and single panels to fish out the background hydrogen structures found everywhere in Cygnus. It even includes additional time focused on a small planetary nebula - PA28 - that is nearby to the Veil Nebula, but rarely imaged.



Published: Aug 18, 2026

Total integration: 318h 20m

Integration per filter:
- Hα: 65h
- OIII: 79h
- Multiband: 174h 20m (2092 × 300")

Equipment:
- Optics: Celestron EdgeHD 8", Rokinon 135mm f/2.0 ED UMC, Sky-Watcher Evostar 80ED / Gold Series, Sky-Watcher Quattro 150P, SVBony SV503 102ED, SVBony SV545
- Cameras: QHYCCD miniCAM8M, ZWO ASI183MM, ZWO ASI2600MC DUO, ZWO ASI2600MC Pro, ZWO ASI533MC Pro
- Mounts: Celestron Advanced VX, Celestron CGX-L, Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro, Sky-Watcher HEQ5 PRO, Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi
- Filters: Baader H-alpha Ultra-Narrowband 3.5nm (CMOS-Optimized) 2", Baader O-III Ultra-Narrowband 4nm (CMOS-Optimized) 2", Optolong L-eNhance 1.25", Optolong L-Ultimate 2", QHYCCD miniCAM8M H-alpha 3nm, QHYCCD miniCAM8M OIII 3nm, SVBony SV220 3nm H-alpha & OIII 2"
- Software: Adobe Photoshop, Nikita Misiura DeepSNR, Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight, Russell Croman Astrophotography BlurXTerminator, Russell Croman Astrophotography StarXTerminator

For more information, visit AstroBin:
https://app.astrobin.com/i/l3k293

Name: Hunter Outten

Email: outtenastrophotography@gmail.com

Website or Facebook Profile: http://app.astrobin.com/u/OuttenAstrophotography