IC 5070, the Pelican Nebula, captured on the night of 11–12 August 2024 with my 8-inch Newtonian telescope and a total integration time of 7.5 hours. With astronomical darkness finally returning to our latitudes, I made the most of the night to reveal the nebula’s delicate structures.
The Pelican Nebula lies in the constellation Cygnus and is part of the same vast star-forming region as the neighbouring North America Nebula, NGC 7000. The two only appear to be separated by a foreground cloud of dark dust. Dense dust structures, bright ionisation fronts and the distinctive outline that loosely resembles a pelican make IC 5070 a particularly rewarding target for astrophotography.
