Pelican in Narrowband (9-2010) - Prelim

This is my first full narrowband image with the Orion 120mm achromat at f/4. This is what I think is the most interesting part of the Pelican Nebula in the constellation Cygnus. The colors are not what the eye would see. Most of the glowing, ionized gas here emits light that would appear red to our eyes. But here, so that we can more easily see what is going on, glowing hydrogen is colored green, glowing oxygen blue, and glowing sulphur red. Yellow is where red and green glow together. The energetic stars embedded in the nebula energize the gas and set it aglow. North is to the right in this image.

The most interesting part of the nebula is the dark finger that reaches up from the ionization front. At the top of this finger is a relatively small, dense cloud of gas and dust slowing being worn away by radiation from the stars lighting the nebula. Hidden in the cloud, a star is being born. We cannot see the star inside the cloud, but the newly-forming star is shooting jets out to the north and south. The jets are visible in this image. The radiation that makes the gas glow is pushing the jets down to one side. This interesting object is called by scientists Herbig-Haro 555.

This image is the product of just over 10 hours of 7 minute exposures added together. H-alpha (hydrogen) was 45x7', OIII (oxygen) 22x7', and SII (sulphur) 20x7'. The image was taken with the Atik 16 from my backyard over three nights in late September, 2010.