Photo of the Week for November 17, 2017
Summer may be long gone, but in November Cygnus is still high overhead at the end of evening twilight. Situated just two degrees east of first-magnitude Deneb lies one of the celestial Swan’s most popular targets (especially for imagers): the North America Nebula. Under dark skies this large object is dimly visible in binoculars and is a treat in a small, wide-field telescope equipped with a nebula filter. The North America Nebula is catalogued as NGC7000, while the smaller cloud “offshore” to the right, is known as the Pelican Nebula, IC5070.
The region is nicely presented in this photo by Ontario astrophotographer Rick Saunders, who captured the nebulas last June while attending the Cherry Springs Star Party in Pennsylvania. For the final image, Rick combined 10, 300-second exposures recorded at ISO 1600 with a Nikon D810A DSLR camera and Astro-Tech AT65EDQ ED (65mm, f/6.5) astrographic refractor telescope.
