The Pelican Nebula (also known as IC 5070 and IC 5067) is an H II region associated with the North America Nebula in the constellation Cygnus. The gaseous contortions of this emission nebula bear a resemblance to a pelican, giving rise to its name. The Pelican Nebula is located nearby first magnitude star Deneb, and is divided from its more prominent neighbor, the North America Nebula, by a molecular cloud filled with dark dust.

The Pelican is much studied because it has a particularly active mix of star formation and evolving gas clouds. The light from young energetic stars is slowly transforming cold gas to hot and causing an ionization front gradually to advance outward. Millions of years from now this nebula might no longer be known as the Pelican, as the balance and placement of stars and gas will leave something that appears completely different. [Source, Wikipedia].

The image was captured with the Meade 12"LX200, using the Atik 383L+ mono at F7.16 (i.e. 2182mm FL). Astronomik's Ha, OIII and SII narrow band filters were used for the color mix. Only the Ha filter was used for luminance. All subs were taken at 1x1 bin, -10C, and 10 minutes each.

Ha : 38 subs (6.33 hr) on Aug 8th, Aug 11th, Aug 12th and Aug 13th.

OIII : 30 subs (5.00 hr) on Aug 8th, Aug 11th, Aug 12th and Aug 13th.

SII : 29 subs (4.83 hr) on Aug 9th, Aug 12th and Aug 13th.

Processing was done with PixInsight, following (for the most part) kayronjm's tutorial of Feb. 24th

North is up. This is a very slight crop.

Color mix for the image was per Juan's (PixInsight) preferred palette:

Red = 0.5 Ha + 0.5 SII

Green = 0.15 Ha + 0.85 OIII

Blue = OIII

The Pelican is a rather large object and my Meade setup creates a fairly narrow field of view. Consequently, my goal was to capture some of the fine detail in the heart of the nebula, while trying to add pleasing color. I'm satisfied with the detail, but afraid the color still needs some work.

I continue to use a trial version of Sequence Generator Pro, for all of the camera controls, including auto-focusing. So far, I've not been able to finish a night without having to re-start the system. So I'm not getting the amount of sleep I would have liked. But I'm hopeful that this will get sorted out.