NGC 7000 in Ha

Cygnus - Hydrogen Emissions

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North America and the Pelican in Hydrogen-Alpha Light

One of my favorite photography targets gets a special look! My previous color image of this object, shown here, was taken only with red, green, and blue filters. This image is taken with a special, narrowband filter that highlights the particular hydrogen gases that emit from this nebulous region. This allows for much more detail in the wisps of the nebula itself, much more than with traditional RGB filters. While my previous RGB image is quite pleasing, even award winning ("Best Deep Sky Photograph" at the 2004 Texas Star Party), it lacks some of the detail that is possible.

Two areas of the nebula, shown highlighted below, are especially well known and best demonstrate the detail possible when shooting in Hydrogen-alpha light.

The first of these regions is the "Gulf Coast" area of NGC7000 itself:

And second, there is the following shot of the "neck" area of the Pelican, IC 5070:

Location: Eldorado Star Party 2004 near Eldorado, Texas
Date: October 15, 2004
Temperature: 54 degrees F
Seeing: 3/10
Transparency: 8/10
Scope/mount: Takahashi FSQ-106 @ f/5 and Tak NJP mount
Camera: SBIG STL-6303E, self-guided
Filter: Custom Scientific 4.5nm Hydrogen-Alpha filter
Exposure Info: Grayscale image in Hydrogen-Alpha light - 120 minutes - (10 minute subexposures unbinned).
Processing Info: Dark frame calibration (no flats), de-blooming, registration, and Sigma combine of all channels in MaxIm 4.0. Levels, Curves, selective unsharp mask, selective gaussian blur, and dust removal in Photoshop CS.