North America Nebula

It has been some time since I last had the scope out…I forgot many things, but still got an incredible image and learned a ton.

The North American Nebula (NGC 7000) is in Cygnus, and is an emission nebula 2590 light years away. It’s big - 140 light years by 90 light years, which I think is roughly 3 times the apparent size of the moon².

It is also visible here year-round, albeit night is only about four hours long when I took this shot.

Its availability was obviously helpful, but I have been wanting to photograph it for some time because of the Cygnus Wall: a stellar nursery, where the new stars are transforming a wall of gasses from cold to hot along an “ionization front”³.

I need to spend more time on this nebula, and I also need to do some research on filters. I am beginning to suspect the wavelenghts of things I’m photographing, the wavelenghts passed by my filter, and the wavelengths my camera are sensitive to are not particularly lined up–as if light pollution wasn’t a big enough problem!

In any case, I am still absolutely blown away by this and look forward to trying again.