Tag: North America Nebula

Cygnus

Cygnus is a prominent constellation in the northern hemisphere’s summer and autumn skies. Known as the “Swan,” it is easily recognizable due to its distinctive shape, which some people interpret as a flying bird with outstretched wings. In Greek mythology, Cygnus is often associated with the story of Zeus and the transformation of his lover, the beautiful mortal named Leda, into a swan.

The constellation Cygnus is home to several interesting celestial objects. One of the most famous is the Northern Cross, a prominent asterism formed by the brightest stars in the constellation. Deneb (upper right corner), is the brightest star in Cygnus.

In addition to stars, Cygnus contains various deep-sky objects. The North America Nebula (NGC 7000) and the Pelican Nebula (IC 5070) are two emission nebulae located in the region of Deneb. These nebulae are often photographed due to their striking shapes, resembling the continent of North America and a pelican, respectively. Moreover, two supernova remnants can be found in this constellation. The Veil Nebula (upper left) knows probably every amateur astrophotographer, but to find out that there is another remnant called LNB 147 (lower left) was a surprise for me. This one deserves more attention, and if the weather allows, I will try to capture more light coming from there.

Cygnus is also traversed by the Milky Way, making it a rich region for observing star clusters, nebulae, and other deep-sky wonders. Overall, the constellation Cygnus holds a special place in both mythology and astronomy, offering stargazers a captivating celestial experience.

The pictures are a mosaic of 3×4 frames. In total, I captured 342 frames, each 5 minutes long (integration time 28 hours 30 minutes), which were taken during 10 nights in August and September. This makes it my biggest astrophotography project so far.

TelescopeAskar ACL 200 F4
Aperture50 mm
Focal length200 mm
MountRainbow Astro RST 135
AutoguidingZWO 178MM, QHY Mini Guide Scope
CameraZWO 6200MC @-10°C
FiltersAntlia ALP-T Dualband 5nm
Exposure342x300s, Gain 100, bin 1×1,
Date2023-09-12
2023-09-15
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2023-08-23

NGC7000 North America Nebula

I am back from a very intensive trip to Namibia. The report is still pending because I post-processed the data the whole summer. Please stay tuned. Anyway, a few days in August was nice weather, so I took the SharpStar 94 EPDH telescope and pointed into the constellation Cygnus. There are many deep-space objects in this constellation because it is on the galactic plane. Probably the brightest and the most spectacular is North Americal Nebula, sometimes called the Cygnus wall. Since I live in a light-polluted area, I used narrow-band filters to create this image, which is a combination of Hydrogen-alpha (Ha) in the green channel, oxygen III (OIII) in the blue channel, and sulfur II (SII) in the red channel.

And here is a simplified bi-color variant (red – Ha, green OIII, blue OIII):

TelescopeSharpstar 94EDPH
Aperture94 mm
Focal length414 mm
MountRainbow Astro RST 135
AutoguidingZWO 174MM, QHY Mini Guide Scope
CameraZWO 2600MM @-10°C
CorrectorF4.4 Quad Reducer
FiltersAntlia Ha, OIII, SII 3 nm
Exposure96x300s, Gain 100, bin 1x1,
Date2022-08-26

Cygnus

I went to Crete without a detailed plan on which deep space objects to capture. The primary target was Rho Ophiuchi, which I captured really well. Then I started to think about the next objects. Obviously, if you are in a dark place, you can point your camera nearly anywhere. However, there are some regions full of stars and deep space objects. For example constellation Cygnus, which is sometimes called the Northern Cross. It is located visually on the plane of the Milky Way galactic disk, therefore there are many deep space objects.

Let’s have a look at a wide-field picture captured by a 24 mm lens attached to Canon EOS 6Da:

Let’s zoom a bit by changing the lens to a 50 mm focal length. Here the constellation is perfectly centered:

Let’s zoom further to the central star Sadr by change of the lens to 180 mm focal length:

Let’s keep the focal length 180 mm and let’s have a look at the left star Deneb and very famous North America nebula:

Again, let’s keep the focal length 180 mm and change to perspective to the bottom (eastern) star Aljanah, where the beautiful supernova remnant the Veil nebula is located:

In total, the camera collected 15.5 hours of light and I am happy with the result.


NGC7000 North America Nebula

After capturing the Eagle Nebula, I was searching for another nebula to test the new IDAS NB1 filter and I picked NGC7000 North America Nebula, switched on autoguiding, and went to sleep. The next morning I processed 138 pictures, each 3 minutes long. Well, I must say that this filter is a very good option for astrophotography in light-polluted locations.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 254/1000 mm
Aperture254 mm
Focal length950 mm
MountGemini G53f
AutoguidingZWO 174MM, TS 60/240 mm
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-5°C
CorrectorMaxField coma corrector
FiltersIDAS NB1 Nebula Filter
Exposure138x180s, Gain 95, bin 1x1,
Date2020-08-10

NGC7000 North America Nebula

North America nebula, also called NGC 7000, is a giant cloud of ionize hydrogen gas – HII region, located in constellation Cygnus. The shape reminds contour of the North America continent, specifically the eastern cost between Golf of Mexico and Florida. Visually, the nebula is big and it didn’t fit in my telescope/camera field of view. NGC 7000 together with Pelican nebula create a nebulae pair, which is approximately 2000 light-years from Earth.

The picture demonstrates how low light pollution on Milos Island is. The picture is an integration of only 27 pictures, exposure 3 minute each, i.e. 81 minutes in total. It’s impressive – no narrow band filters were used.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 150/600 mm
Aperture150 mm
Focal length660 mm
MountiOptron CEM25P
AutoguidingQHYCCD miniGuideScope 130 mm f/4.3, ZWO 174 MM
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-10C
CorrectorExplore Scientific HR coma corrector
FiltersAstronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter
Exposure27x180s, Gain 134, bin 1x1,
Date2018-09-09