North American Nebula in H-alpha

[Hughsie]

The North American Nebula is situated in the constellation Cygnus close to the star, Deneb. It represents a large area of ionised Hydrogen gas which is comprised of both this object and the Pelican Nebula. Being a Hydrogen emission nebula, it is an attractive photography target especially using a Hydrogen filter and is ideally placed being close to the Zenith.

It is not known what star is causing the Hydrogen to ionise, however if it is Deneb then this object is c1,800 Light Years away. The dark area representing the 'Gulf of Mexico' is actually an interstellar dust cloud located between the observer and NGC 7000 which is blocking out the light of the nebula. This gives the object the distinctive 'North American Continent' shape.

Moving along to 'Mexico' we can see an area along the 'west coast' where the gas has started to consolidate into a star forming region. 

The following image was taken on 3 August 2019 between 00.44 BST and 02.33 BST. It is comprised of 35 two minute exposures and calibrated with 25 dark, flat and dark flat images. These were stacked and processed using PixInsight. 

Equipment used; William Optics Z61; 2" Astronomik Ha 12nm filter; ZWO ASI 1600mm Pro Cooled camera set at Unity Gain and sensor temperature of -15c. Mounted on an HEQ6R-Pro. Guiding with PHD2 and image captured using Astrophotography Tool (APT).

 

Thanks for looking in.

John