Emission nebula
North America Nebula (NGC7000)
In Cygnus (Cyg) • Magnitude 4.0 • 2.0 degrees
Open the free AstroPlanner with North America Nebula pre-selected, scored against your telescope, location, and the live cloud forecast.
A vast emission nebula in Cygnus shaped like the North American continent. A wide-field Ha favorite during summer and autumn.
North America Nebula at a glance
| Catalog IDs | N 7000, C 20 |
| Type | Emission nebula |
| Constellation | Cygnus (Cyg) |
| Right ascension | 20h 58m 48s |
| Declination | +44° 19' 48" |
| Apparent magnitude | 4.00 |
| Surface brightness | 16.0 mag/arcsec² |
| Angular size | 120.0 × 100.0 arcmin |
| Max altitude at 45°N | 89° |
| Best imaging months | Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov |
How to image North America Nebula
North America Nebula sits in the constellation Cygnus at right ascension 20h 58m 48s and declination +44° 19' 48". To frame and integrate it well, AstroPlanner will compute the optimal moonless window for tonight from your location, the field-of-view fit against your sensor and focal length, the suggested total integration time given your aperture and sky Bortle class, and a cloud-aware schedule that drops it from the plan if your nearest cloud forecast spike overlaps the best altitude window. As an emission nebula, North America Nebula responds very well to dual-narrowband filters under city skies.