North America and Pelican Nebula

Discovered in 1786 by William Herschel, the North

America Nebula shows its characteristic shape only in wide field astrophotographs.

 

The North America Nebula is separated from the Pelican Nebula by a dark dust cloud catalogued in 1962 as L935.

 

It took until 2004 for astronomers to identify the star that ionizes both the North America and the Pelican Nebula. The light of the inconspicuous star, named J205551.3+435225, is almost entirely blocked by the dark cloud L935. As J205551.3+435225 lies just off the “Florida coast” of the North America Nebula, it has been more conveniently nicknamed the Bajamar Star ("Islas de Bajamar," meaning "low-tide islands" in Spanish, was the original name of the Bahamas).

 

Equipment:

Telescope: William Optics Megrez 88

Camera: ZWO ASI 1600MM Pro

ZWO EFW with Baader HaRGB filters

ZWO EAF autofocus

ZWO ASI 385MC autoguider

Equatorially mounted Skywatcher AZ-GTI

Controlled with ASIair Plus

 

9-panel panorama, each 3x60s with RGB @ 5x 180s Ha, total exposure time: 3h36min

Done