North American Nebula (MountainAir)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Cygnus (Cyg) · Contains: 62 Cyg · B349 · B352 · B353 · B355 · IC 5068 · IC 5070 · LBN 322 · LBN 323 · LBN 324 · LBN 327 · LBN 328 · LBN 329 · LBN 332 · LBN 334 · LBN 338 · LBN 341 · LBN 342 · LBN 343 · LBN 348 · LBN 349 · LBN 350 · LBN 353 · LBN 354 · LBN 356 · LBN 359 · LBN 371 · LBN 373 · LBN 378 · LBN 384 · And 19 more.

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North American Nebula

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North American Nebula

The North American Nebula was discovered by William Herschel himself in 1786. He described it as a "faint milky nebulosity scattered over this space." It was later named the "North American Nebula" in 1890 by one of the early astrophotographers, Max Wolf.

The nebula lies 2,590 light years away, in the constellation Cygnus. It is some 140 light years across, resulting in an apparent size of about 10 full moons. However, like most deep space objects it is extremely dim and cannot be seen even with large binoculars. This rendition was captured in 7 different wavelengths over about a dozen nights in July and August 2022, and presented using the Hubble Palette.

For many years there was great controversy over not just now distant the nebula was from Earth, but over its illumination source. The other stars in the image are just not hot enough to ionize HII to such levels. It wasn't until 2004 that astronomers were able to detect star J205551.3+435225 at infrared wavelengths, smack in the middle of the dark nebula in the center. It burns at over 40,000°K.

The Pelican Nebula, in the lower left, is a fascinating region of star formation and gas ionization and expansion. I will capture it under higher magnification in the future, because it has dark dust lanes and cold streams of gas being heated. In a few million years it likely won't resemble a pelican anymore.

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	6307757
PixInsight job	W2EMQMWXH735EW0ZBP0IG5AUJZ8WVGEV
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	20h55m42s.95
RA (top/left)	20h53m57s.46
RA (top/right)	21h10m06s.82
RA (bottom/right)	20h57m38s.15
RA (bottom/left)	20h41m37s.71

Dec (center)	+43°51′43″.7
Dec (top/left)	+41°13′36″.4
Dec (top/right)	+44°28′52″.6
Dec (bottom/right)	+46°29′47″.4
Dec (bottom/left)	+43°07′51″.4

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North American Nebula

North American Nebula

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Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

North American Nebula

North American Nebula

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