Credit: KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/Adam Block

The North America Nebula (NGC 7000), named for its resemblance to the North American Continent here on Earth, is located in the constellation of Cygnus. Most of the nebulosity shown here is in the foreground (superimposed) of the band of the Milky Way. The stars are very dense towards this spiral arm and where the dust and gas thins, their numbers are plain to see.This four frame mosaic subtends more than 4 degrees of the sky. You could easily fit over 30 Moons in this picture! The very bright star on the right of the frame is Deneb, and surprisingly it is not associated with the nebula as it is well over 1,500 light years away. Indeed, if Deneb were 50 times closer (30 light years, I am insinuating absolute magnitude) it would be brighter than Venus in the sky and rival the moon! (-7.2 in magnitude).But the wonderfully glowing clouds shown here are closer, and until recently the star (or stars) responsible for making them glow was a mystery. In the fall of 2004 two astronomers, Fernando Comeron and Anna Pasquali, published a paper that seems to identify this secretive star. The star is hidden behind thick clouds of dust that attenuate its light. By observing in the infrared and looking for stars that are intrinsically hot and bright (OB)- only one seemed to fit the shoe! Click HERE to the same high-resolution image you get when you click on the image below... but with an arrow indicating this stealthy star. Look just off the coast of "Florida" in the Atlantic Ocean. This image was taken as part of Advanced Observing Program (AOP) program at Kitt Peak Visitor Center during 2014.

Provider: NOIRLab

Image Source: https://noirlab.edu/public/images/noao-n7000mosblock/

Curator: NSF's NOIRLab, Tucson, AZ, USA

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License