North America Nebula��Too dim to see with the naked eye even under the darkest conditions, this is a spectacular area of nebulosity in our summertime skies. Lying in the plane of the disk of the Milky Way near the “tail” of the constellation Cygnus, Max Wolf named this nebula after seeing it in an early photograph in 1890 for its obvious visual resemblance to North America’s shape. Captured with my wide field telescope at a 405mm focal length in the Hubble palette, it covers an area equal to 10 full moons in our night sky. Wow.
Imagine how different our skies would feel if we could see these things with our naked eye!
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