Categories: Astrophotos

Astrophotos: A Wide Angle “Trilogy” of the North America Nebula

A colorful, wide view of the North American Nebula (NGC 7000 or Caldwell 20) in Cygnus. This three-panel mosaic spanning an area approximately 2.5 x 5.5 degrees, captured using QHY11/TAK E180 presented here in H-Alpha, Hubble Palette and RGB with H-Alpha. Credit and copyright: Terry Hancock.

A perfect set of astrophotos for #WideAngleWednesday! Here are not one but three views of the North America Nebula taken by Terry Hancock. Terry said this is his widest view yet of this region. Also known as NGC 7000 or Caldwell 20, this is an emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus that resembles the shape of North America and The Gulf Of Mexico. It lies at a distance of approximately 1800 light years away from Earth.

Terry presents a “trilogy” of three different color processes (see below). He took imagery in both July and September 2014 with a total exposure time of 13.9 hours from his Down Under Observatory in Fremont, Michigan.

For more details about the processing for each image, click on the images. To see more of Terry’s great work, see his website, Facebook, Flickr, or G+.

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A wide, three-panel mosaic spanning an area approximately 2.5 x 5.5 degrees of the North America Nebula (NGC 7000 or Caldwell 20), in H-Alpha, Hubble Palette and RGB with H-Alpha. Credit and copyright: Terry Hancock.

Another version of the 3-panel, wide angle view of the North America Nebula. Credit and copyright: Terry Hancock.

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Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/