North America Nebula (NGC 7000)

The northern part of Cygnus is an area particularly rich in clouds of hydrogen gas. Ionized by the intense UV radiation of embedded stars, it emits light at the characteristic wavelengths of the Balmer series, the most intense one being the red Ha line at 656 nm. Due to interstellar dust, the field stars are also reddened. The most prominent features are the North America and Pelican nebulae,shaped by luminous Ha regions and dark dust clouds. Other CCD images of this region: HαRGB image and a Hα mosaic

Instrument	:	Minolta 1.7/50 mm lens, stopped down to f/3.5 and mounted with a home-made adapter
Camera	:	Starlight Xpress SXV-H9 CCD camera
Filter	:	Astronomik RGB, B channel additionally with IDAS LPS filter
Mount	:	Losmandy G-11
Guiding	:	ST-4 autoguider
Date	:	18 Oct. 2003
Exposure	:	RGB: 3x6 min each
Sites	:	near Baruth, Brandenburg, Germany
Processing	:	No dark and flat frames. Bias subtraction and digital development: IRAF; color processing: Gimp
RGB combine ratio	:	1.0:1.0:1.6