2016 August 6 ~ The North America & Pelican Nebulae in Cygnus [WITH LABELS]

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Photographed at Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada, between 00.39 and 00.52 EDT

(285 km by road north of Toronto)

* Temperature 17° C.

 

* Total exposure time: 6 minutes.

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Description:

 

Visually with the unaided eye, or in binoculars or a telescope, the distinctively-shaped North America Nebula, and the Pelican Nebula just to its right, appear as faint white clouds in the middle of our Milky Way galaxy. Long exposures with a digital camera sensor reveal the red glow of hydrogen gas, however, especially with Nikon's red sensitive D810a astrophotography camera.

 

This area of the sky is located in the centre of our own Milky Way galaxy as it passes across the northern hemisphere summer sky.

 

The brilliant star at upper right is the supergiant Deneb, the brightest star in the constellation Cygnus (the Swan), and the 19th brightest star in the sky.

 

For a version of this photo WITHOUT LABELS, click on your screen to the LEFT of the photo, or click here:

www.flickr.com/photos/97587627@N06/28274351193

 

And for a closer in view of the two nebulae made with a 400 mm lens in July 2015, click here:

www.flickr.com/photos/97587627@N06/20012353576

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Technical information:

 

Nikkor AF-S 70 - 200 mm f/2.8 G ED VRII lens on Nikon D810a camera body, mounted on Astrophysics 1100GTO equatorial mount with a Kirk Enterprises ball head

 

Six stacked frames; each frame:

200 mm focal length

ISO 5000; 1 minute exposure at f/4.5; unguided

(with LENR - long exposure noise reduction)

 

Subframes registered in RegiStar;

Stacked and processed in Photoshop CS6 (brightness, contrast, levels, colour balance, colour desaturation)

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Done