Imaging telescopes or lenses: Sky-Watcher 80ED
Imaging cameras: Moravian Instruments G2-1600
Mounts: Sky-Watcher HEQ5
Guiding telescopes or lenses: Sky-Watcher 70/500
Focal reducers: Teleskop-Service 0.8x
Software: PixInsight
Filters: Astronomik H-alpha 6nm
Dates: Sept. 30, 2011
Locations: Home pier
Frames: Astronomik H-alpha 6nm: 5x1200"
Integration: 1.7 hours
Avg. Moon age: 2.94 days
Avg. Moon phase: 9.48%
Bortle Dark-Sky Scale: 6.00
(5x20')
Only 100 minutes went into the capturing of this NGC7000, split into five 20-minute subs. Obviously this is an area extremely rich of hydrogen, as the amount of signal is incredible for my tiny 80mm refractor.
NGC7000, aka The North America nebula (obvious nickname), is a very large nebula, actually covering an area four times as large as the full moon. The area I imaged is called “Cygnus’s Wall”.
Very interesting, the shape you see is not the result of a particularly shaped cloud of gas, but it’s determined by the fact that between us and NGC7000 lie some bands of interstellar dark dust.
The distance of the nebula is not known, nor is the star that lights it. Some sources indicate that the star might be Daneb; in that case, NGC7000 might be 1800 light-years away, and it’s absolute size would be about 100 light-year across.