NGC 6995

NGC 6995 = Veil Nebula
20 57 10 +31 14.1
Size 12

13.1": this is amazingly detailed southern end of the eastern section of the 
Veil Nebula attached to N6992 and contains beautiful feather-like side branches 
to the west, especially using an OIII filter .  See description of N6992.

- by Steve Gottlieb

NGC 6960, NGC 6974, NGC 6979, NGC 6992, NGC 6995, and IC 1340 are all part of
the Veil Nebula, the wonderful supernova remnant in Cygnus.  The various parts
are so large, and most of them so bright, that the generally poor positions in
the NGC don't matter.  Only the position for NGC 6974 (which see) is 
completely off its intended part of the nebulosity.

WH describes his "front-view" (what we now call the Herschelian focus of a
reflecting telescope) in a note to his observation of NGC 6960.  He writes 
that at the Newtonian focus the nebula extended one degree acorss the sky, 
while at the Herschelian focus, it stretched twice as far.  He is clearly 
extremely pleased with the performance of his telescope in its "front-view"
configuration, but I expect that the additional awkwardness in using it drove
him to the Newtonian focus for most of his sweeping.

In the IC2 Notes for NGC 6992, Dreyer paraphrases a short note by Pickering 
(at the end of an article in ApJ 23, 257, 1906) which describes the appearance
of the entire Veil as seen on a 24-inch Bruce plate of 4 hours exposure.
Unfortunately, Pickering chose to not publish the photograph; it would have
made an impressive plate in this early ApJ paper. - Dr. Harold G. Corwin, Jr.
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NGC 6995 is part of the Veil Nebula.  The position I've chosen is more or less
for the middle of the nebulous complex shown in JH's sketch, published as 
Figure 82 in his 1833 Slough Catalogue.  He probably saw the knot we now call
IC 1340 (which see) as well.  Though it is off the southwest side of the 
sketch, the entire panel of the figure is filled with nebulosity, and I'm 
pretty sure that JH could have traced the nebula well beyond the boundaries he 
chose to include in his drawing.

See NGC 6960 for more discussion of the Veil. - Dr. Harold G. Corwin, Jr.

As with all corrections to the NGC and IC Catalogues, there is a certain margin
for error, even though the evidence supporting the correction may be strong and
compelling. It is with this in mind that we ask the user to use this information
as 'Most Probable', but never to assume the correction is 'Absolute'.  All
published corrections are based on an exhaustive 'paper chase' of the historical
record back to the original discoverer's published notes/papers, and are
therefore based upon the historical accuracy (or inaccuracy) of those particular
notes/papers. In short, Caveat Emptor! - Robert E. Erdmann, Jr.