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NGC 7000 IC5070

Cyg

• Askar D1 Ha-O3
• Askar D2 S2-O3
• IDAS LPS-D3

• 45 x 300 sec - 3h 55m
• 13 x 300 sec - 1h 05m
• 18 x 300 sec - 1h 30m
• Total exposure: 6h 30m

The North America Nebula and the nearby Pelican Nebula (IC 5070) are part of the same vast interstellar cloud of ionized hydrogen (Region H II); the nebulous region they together constitute is designated W80 and DR 27 and extends for approximately 3°. The two bright nebulae appear separated by a band of dark gas belonging to the same nebulous complex known as LDN 935. The region also hosts several open clusters, such as NGC 6996.

This nebulous complex actually constitutes the illuminated portion of the large system of gas and dust known as the Cygnus Rift, clearly visible because it completely obscures the light of the stars beyond it and thus the brightness of the Milky Way. Between us and the nebula lies a band of interstellar dust that absorbs the light of the stars and the nebula behind it, giving it its visible shape. For a long time, the star responsible for the ionization of the cloud's hydrogen was not known with certainty; if it were Deneb, as some sources suggest, the distance would be approximately 1,800 light-years, and its absolute size would be 100 light-years (6° apparent diameter). However, this hypothesis appears rather unrealistic. Studies conducted at various wavelengths have identified around twenty sources coinciding with as many stars deeply immersed in or hidden by gas. Among these, 2MASS J205551.25+435224.6 stands out. This particularly isolated source lies beyond the dark band of LDN 935, clearly visible in the near-infrared spectrum, coinciding with a young blue star of spectral type O5V. Its location is particularly interesting because it lies exactly at the geometric center of the nebular complex, making it primarily responsible for the ionization of the surrounding gas.
The distance of the nebula complex has been indicated in various studies as between 500 and 1,000 parsecs (1,630–3,260 light-years) from the solar system; this inaccuracy is mainly due to the objective difficulty encountered in observing this region of the sky, which appears extremely congested due to the overlap of a large number of different nebulous regions on the same line of sight. This is because this direction coincides with the median axis of the Orion Arm, the galactic spiral arm that also includes the Sun. More recent distance estimates have, however, greatly reduced the uncertainties in these estimates, indicating values ​​that are generally in agreement with each other; these estimates indicate a distance of 600±50 parsecs (1956±163 light-years).