wide field astrophotography
The North America Nebula (NGC 7000, Caldwell 20) is a hydrogen emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus. It is about 2,200 light years away from our sun and measures roughly 100 light years across. NGC 7000 gets its common name from its resemblance to the outline of the continent of North America.
Camera: ASI2600MC | Scope: 61mm WO Zenithstar 61 | Exposure: 2h 43m | Date: 2023-06-17
The North America Nebula covers a region more than ten times the area of the full moon, but its surface brightness is low, so normally it cannot be seen with the naked eye. This image was captured with a small refractor telescope from dark skies (Bortle Class 3) at the ES Fox Observatory (Bruce Peninsula).
annotated version detailing some of the surrounding deep sky objects
The image below was captured two years earlier with the same telescope but with a less sensitive DSLR camera. (The older image is also rotated 90 degrees clockwise.)
Nikon D750 | WO Zenithstar 61ii 360mm | 56 min exposure | 2021-07-30 (image reprocessed 2023-07-06)
The bright smaller nebula just to the right of NGC 7000 is the Pelican Nebula (IC 5070) and falling out of the frame in the lower right corner is IC 5068. Also seen in the image are the stars Cygnus 56, 57, 60 and 62 as well as open star clusters NGC 6996 (Bird's Nest Cluster) and NGC 6997.
Astrometric annotations detail the nebulae, stars and clusters in this region of Cygnus
