The North American Nebula (NGC 7000) is a heavily hydrogen rich emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus, near the tail of the swan shaped constellation in the northern sky. It’s fairly bright with an apparent magnitude of 4 but it does span a huge amount of space, about 2 degrees wide. It covers an area about 10 times the size of the full moon, like I said, really big. We can’t see it with our naked eye despite its size because that light is spread out over such a large area. The camera can pick up that light though since it can collect photons for practically an indefinite amount of time compared to our Mark I Eyeballs. This image was captured with my new 61mm refractor and my trusty QHY camera. Captured September 9, 2021 from Fredericksberg, Texas, a lovely little Dark Sky Community a bit west of Austin.
