First light with a new telescope, a WO RedCat 61.  I've been admiring the wider field images that others have been posting, so I thought I would try something with a shorter FL for nebula season.  This narrowband image captures a field a little over four degrees wide not far from the star Deneb in the constellation Cygnus.  Emission nebula captured here include the North American Nebula (NGC 7000) on the left, the Pelican Nebula (IC 5070) on the right, and the Forsaken Nebula (IC 5068) in the lower right.  These were originally cataloged as separate objects, but recent observations indicate they are all part of the same complex.  The dark lane separating NGC 7000 and IC 5070 is actually a dark cloud of molecular gas (L935), which obscures the central region.  It is this dark region that gives NGC7000 its resemblance to the North American continent (it's a bit turned on its side in this view...the large dark area below center is the "Gulf of Mexico," while the bright extensions below and above it are "Mexico" and "Florida," respectively).

For many years the star responsible for ionizing the nebula was unknown, but Comeron and Pasquali in 2004 identified an O-type star just to the east of the "Florida Peninsula" of the North American nebula that appears to be the ionizing star.  This star is now known as the Bajamar Star.  The dark region corresponding to the "Gulf of Mexico" isn't very impressive in visible light, but surveys in infrared and other wavelengths that are visible through the dust cloud indicate it is the most active star forming region in the complex.

Over three nights I collected 20x120s R, 20x60s G and B, 24x300s Ha, 40x300s OII, and 50x300s SII.  Passing clouds ruined many of the OIII and SII subs, so the total used for this image was about 7 hours 40 minutes.  I still have some pretty severe tilt to sort out, but overall I think I'm going to like this scope and it's much wider field.

"The ionizing star of the North America and Pelican nebulae"
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005A%26A...430..541C/abstract

"Outflows, Dusty Cores, and a Burst of Star Formation in the North America and Pelican Nebulae"
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014AJ....148..120B/abstract