Gulf of Mexico in NGC 7000

July 12, 2020

Here's another crop from the stacked 41 x 240 second subs of the North America Nebula (NGC 7000) in Ha, this time the "Gulf of Mexico" region, with some fantastic dark nebulae. This is a slightly narrower field of view than the Cygnus Wall, and so we're only looking at about 100 trillion miles from one side to the other. When you read that atomic hydrogen, the lightest element, makes up 75% of the baryonic mass of the universe, this is what they're talking about. Almost everything you see in this frame, dark and light clouds--even the stars, is hydrogen in various forms.