Instrument

Takahashi FSQ-106ED @ f/5.0 (530 mm F.L.)  Captured at 3.5 arcsec/pixel.  Shown resampled to 17.5 arcsec/pixel.

Mount

Paramount ME

Camera

SBIG STL-11000 w/ internal filter wheel, AstroDon Filters

Acquisition Data

7/16/2008 to 7/17/2008 Chino Valley... with CCDAutoPilot3

Exposure

SII    240 min. (16 x 15 min. bin 1x1)

Hα    135 min. (  9 x 15 min. bin 1x1)
OIII  120 min.  ( 8 x 15 min. bin 1x1)

Hα  is used for the luminance

SII,Ha & OIII are mapped to RGB respectivly

Software

CCDSoft, CCDStack, Photoshop CS w/ the Fits Liberator plugin and Noel Carboni's actions.

CCDStack to calibrate, register, normalize, data reject & combine.

PhotoShop for non-linear stretching and the color combine.

North is to the top.

The colors in the top image are similar to the Hubble Palette.  The lower two images use the same filter mapping but great liberties were taken with the channel levels and hues of individual colors.

The emission nebula on the left is famous partly because it resembles Earth's continent of North America. To the right of the North America Nebula, cataloged as NGC 7000, is a less luminous nebula that resembles a pelican dubbed the Pelican Nebula, cataloged as IC 5070. The two emission nebula measure about 50 light-years across, are located about 1500 light-years away, and are separated by a dark absorption cloud. The nebulae can be seen with binoculars from a dark location. Look for a small nebular patch north-east of bright star Deneb in the constellation of Cygnus.

Source:  NASA APOD

More info at Wikipedia: NGC 7000   IC 5070