North America Nebula

Nebula in Cygnus · 1,600 light-years

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Type	Nebula
Constellation	Cygnus
Right ascension	20h 59m 17s
Declination	+44° 32′
Object distance	1,600 light-years
Apparent size	120′ (arc-minutes)
Approx. true diameter	55.9 light-years across
Also known as	C20 · NGC 7000

Caldwell 20, popularly known as the North America Nebula, is a nebula (NGC 7000) in Cygnus — a luminous cloud of interstellar gas and dust. It appears as number 20 in the Caldwell catalogue, Sir Patrick Moore's 1995 list of 109 bright deep-sky objects for amateur astronomers. It spans roughly 120 arc-minutes on the sky. It is one of the showpiece objects Sir Patrick Moore chose for his Caldwell list of bright targets the Messier catalogue left out.

Although it appears about 120′ wide on the sky, its real span is roughly 55.9 light-years — the difference is a measure of how far away it lies.

Observing North America Nebula

North America Nebula lies in the constellation Cygnus and is best placed in the evening sky around August. Its maximum altitude above the horizon depends on your latitude. It is best placed for observers in the northern hemisphere, and sits low for those far south. Note that the listed magnitude is spread across the whole object — diffuse galaxies and nebulae are often harder to see than the number alone suggests, so dark, moonless skies help a great deal.

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Sources

Position, magnitude and angular size from the OpenNGC catalogue (Mattia Verga).
Object identity cross-referenced with SIMBAD (CDS, Strasbourg).
Image credits and the original observation source are linked with each photograph.

Related objects

Orion Nebula — nebula
Ring Nebula — nebula
Eagle Nebula — nebula
Carina Nebula — nebula
Lagoon Nebula — nebula