North America Nebula and the surrounding area

May 15, 2021

Did some astro-imaging last night! I think of narrowband imaging as my thing, but it's always fun to use the cooled color camera on what are typically narrowband deep sky targets--the emission nebula NGC 7000 (North America Nebula) in this case. You can probably see why it's called the North America Nebula. To the right of it is the Pelican Nebula (IC 5070) with IC 5068 on the lower right. As you can see, I also managed to capture a few stars. That bright area in the upper right is one of the brightest stars in the sky, Deneb, encroaching on the frame. This is 42 x 2-minute sub-exposures stacked in DSS and processed in PS2021. Equipment: William Optics SpaceCat 51 APO refractor, ZWO ASI071MC, no filters, DeepSkyDad AF3 focuser, iOptron CEM25P mount.

Setup for the night, using the test pier off the deck, doing some fine adjustment to the guide cam distance.