The North America Nebula (NGC 7000) is a cloud of glowing hydrogen in Cygnus, a few degrees east of Deneb. In a deep exposure its outline follows the continent it is named for: a wide northern shore, a dark gulf carved by dust, and a bright, ragged coastline — the Cygnus Wall — where new stars are forming.
These photographs record the red light of ionized hydrogen, a glow the eye registers only as a faint haze. The nebula covers a patch of sky about four times the width of the full Moon, yet its light is spread so thin that binoculars under a dark sky show a soft brightening of the Milky Way. A foreground dust lane, LDN 935, hides the hot star that lights the cloud and lies between this nebula and the Pelican Nebula (IC 5070). The two belong to one star-forming region, Sharpless 2-117.
The light in this album left the nebula about 2,590 light-years ago. At that distance, NGC 7000 stretches roughly 90 light-years from north to south. One frame is a stack of 185 exposures, deep enough for the continental outline and the Cygnus Wall to stand out against the star field.
Facts
- Emission nebula in Cygnus, a few degrees east of Deneb
- Distance about 2,590 light-years (Gaia measurement, 2020)
- About 90 light-years north to south; the wider complex is about 140 light-years across
- Apparent size 120 × 100 arcminutes, visual magnitude about 4
- Also Caldwell 20; shares its cloud with the Pelican Nebula (IC 5070)
- Named in 1890 by Max Wolf for its likeness to the continent of North America
