Found at the west side of  the Veil Nebula, the Witch's Broom is part of a large super nova remnant.  It is found in the constellation Cygnus (The Swan). It exploded somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 years ago, and it is 1,500 light years away.  The Witch's Broom is behind, but in close line of sight, to the unrelated 4th magnitude star 52 Cygni.

The image above was taken with the 12" LX200, AO7, and ST-8E camera at f/6.3 on Aug 12 2004 at the Mistletoe Observatory.  It is an RGB image (as detailed below) with a total exposure time of 1 hr 40 min.  Calibration and alignment were done in MaxIm DL.  Final processing was done with Photoshop.