The North America Nebula (NGC 7000) is a large Emission Nebula, which is around 1600 light-years away from us and located in the constellation Cygnus. The Nebula consists the most of ionized hydrogen (H-alpha), which makes it appear in a red glow. The dark parts on the image are mostly light impervious dust which blocks the light emitted by the ionized hydrogen and the stars behind it. The Nebula has its name from its shape, with a little bit of fantasy, it looks like North America.
Seen from Earth, it has a "visible" size of four times the full Moon. Unfortunately, it is way too dim to bee seen by the eye.
On the left side, there is a small part of the Pelican Nebula (IC 5070) visible, which is also part of this big Emission Nebula complex.
The North America Nebula at a focal length of 420mm.
Click on the picture for a larger view ▲
Since the band of the Milky Way crosses the constellation Cygnus, there are very much stars in this region, which can disturb on pictures. Due to the enormous number of stars, the proper Nebula cannot be appropriately perceived. For this reason, I tried to create an image version with fewer stars. If someone should be boring, he can start counting. The program has counted 7295 stars, but the small ones are not taken into account, because they are considered image noise.
My attempt to reduce the stars so that the nebula can be better recognized.
Click on the picture for a larger view ▲
Sadly, there occurred many artifacts on the places where the stars were before. I think that more exposure time would have been good and would have increased the quality of the final image. Once again, the weather didn't give me another chance until now, so that I have to be lucky with this 85 minutes I was able to capture.
Position in the night sky
As mentioned before, the North America Nebula is part of the constellation Cygnus. It is a striking summer constellation on the northern hemisphere and can be easily found by its larger and brighter stars, which build a cross with the very bright star Deneb.
Position of the North America Nebula in the night sky. Screenshot of SkySafari Plus app for iOS.
Click on the picture for a larger view ▲
What else is on the image
In the following picture, I have marked some objects. On the left side, there is a small part of the Pelican Nebula (IC 5070), a bit further to the right, between the bright stars, there is the Open Cluster NGC 6997. Furthermore, I have named some of the bigger stars.
Image with names of some objects/stars. Created by hand in Photoshop.
Click on the picture for a larger view ▲
Details of the image
The picture was taken in my Backyard with the following equipment and settings.
| Camera |
QHYCCD247C |
| Telescope |
TSAPO65Q · 420mm · f6.5 |
| Filter |
Astronimik Luminance L2 (48mm / 2") |
| Guide camera |
QHY5L-II |
| Guide scope |
TSL60D · 240mm · f4.0 |
| Mount |
Skywatcher AZ EQ-6 |
| Exposure time |
17 x 300" = 85 minutes |
| ISO |
Unity Gain @ -20°C |
Everything is controlled by my Astro-PC via remote desktop and wireless LAN.
Software: Sequence Generator Pro, PixInsight, Photoshop CC
The license of my pictures
All images, otherwise clearly indicated, in this post are my own work.
You can use it for free if you credit them to @astrophoto.kevin.
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)
References
https://www.universeguide.com/star/xicygni
https://www.universeguide.com/star/57cygni
https://www.universeguide.com/star/hip103519
https://www.universeguide.com/star/hip103282
https://in-the-sky.org/data/object.php?id=NGC6997
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelican_Nebula
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_America_Nebula
https://in-the-sky.org/data/catalogue.php?cat=Tycho&const=32&sort=0&view=0
Thank you very much for visiting and reading!
If you have any questions or suggestions, please don’t be afraid to let me know of anything you thought about this post in the comments below!
Yours, @astrophoto.kevin
SteemSTEM is a community project with the goal to promote and support Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics on the Steem blockchain. If you wish to support the steemSTEM project you can:
Contribute STEM content using the #steemstem tag | Support steemstem authors | Join our curation trail | Visit our Discord community | Delegate SP to steemstem
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The North America Nebula (NGC 7000) is a large Emission Nebula, which is around 1600 light-years away from us and located in the constellation Cygnus. The Nebula consists the most of ionized hydrogen (H-alpha), which makes it appear in a red glow. The dark parts on the image are mostly light impervious dust which blocks the light emitted by the ionized hydrogen and the stars behind it. The Nebula has its name from its shape, with a little bit of fantasy, it looks like North America.
Seen from Earth, it has a "visible" size of four times the full Moon. Unfortunately, it is way too dim to bee seen by the eye.
On the left side, there is a small part of the Pelican Nebula (IC 5070) visible, which is also part of this big Emission Nebula complex.
The North America Nebula at a focal length of 420mm.
Click on the picture for a larger view ▲
Since the band of the Milky Way crosses the constellation Cygnus, there are very much stars in this region, which can disturb on pictures. Due to the enormous number of stars, the proper Nebula cannot be appropriately perceived. For this reason, I tried to create an image version with fewer stars. If someone should be boring, he can start counting. The program has counted 7295 stars, but the small ones are not taken into account, because they are considered image noise.
My attempt to reduce the stars so that the nebula can be better recognized.
Click on the picture for a larger view ▲
Sadly, there occurred many artifacts on the places where the stars were before. I think that more exposure time would have been good and would have increased the quality of the final image. Once again, the weather didn't give me another chance until now, so that I have to be lucky with this 85 minutes I was able to capture.
Position in the night sky
As mentioned before, the North America Nebula is part of the constellation Cygnus. It is a striking summer constellation on the northern hemisphere and can be easily found by its larger and brighter stars, which build a cross with the very bright star Deneb.
Position of the North America Nebula in the night sky. Screenshot of SkySafari Plus app for iOS.
Click on the picture for a larger view ▲
What else is on the image
In the following picture, I have marked some objects. On the left side, there is a small part of the Pelican Nebula (IC 5070), a bit further to the right, between the bright stars, there is the Open Cluster NGC 6997. Furthermore, I have named some of the bigger stars.
Image with names of some objects/stars. Created by hand in Photoshop.
Click on the picture for a larger view ▲
Details of the image
The picture was taken in my Backyard with the following equipment and settings.
Everything is controlled by my Astro-PC via remote desktop and wireless LAN.
Software: Sequence Generator Pro, PixInsight, Photoshop CC
The license of my pictures
All images, otherwise clearly indicated, in this post are my own work.
You can use it for free if you credit them to @astrophoto.kevin.
References
https://www.universeguide.com/star/xicygni
https://www.universeguide.com/star/57cygni
https://www.universeguide.com/star/hip103519
https://www.universeguide.com/star/hip103282
https://in-the-sky.org/data/object.php?id=NGC6997
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelican_Nebula
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_America_Nebula
https://in-the-sky.org/data/catalogue.php?cat=Tycho&const=32&sort=0&view=0
Thank you very much for visiting and reading!
If you have any questions or suggestions, please don’t be afraid to let me know of anything you thought about this post in the comments below!
Yours, @astrophoto.kevin
SteemSTEM is a community project with the goal to promote and support Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics on the Steem blockchain. If you wish to support the steemSTEM project you can:
Contribute STEM content using the #steemstem tag | Support steemstem authors | Join our curation trail | Visit our Discord community | Delegate SP to steemstem