NGC 7000 — The North America Nebula
Captured with: Seestar S50 Smart Telescope
Distance: ~2,590 light-years
Constellation: Cygnus
Type: Emission Nebula (H II Region)
Apparent Size: ~120 x 100 arcminutes
NGC 7000, the North America Nebula, sprawls across the Milky Way’s rich Cygnus star fields like a celestial continent outlined in light. Its shape, traced by glowing hydrogen gas, bears an uncanny resemblance to our own North American landmass — the dark “Gulf of Mexico” region carved out by thick clouds of interstellar dust.
Through the Seestar S50, this immense nebula glows a deep crimson from ionized hydrogen, with subtle blue and violet tones from oxygen and sulfur. Hidden within its clouds are clusters of young, hot O-type stars whose intense ultraviolet radiation lights the nebula from within, shaping and eroding the gas like cosmic weather.
The North America Nebula is not a single structure but part of a vast complex of interstellar gas, intertwined with the nearby Pelican Nebula. Together they form a stellar nursery — a sprawling landscape of birth and transformation stretching across hundreds of light-years.