Epic nebula 62 EP

North America Nebula

RA 314.8214° · Dec 44.5288° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges

62 pts · Epic

Epic 78 pts → Anomaly

Star-forming region +14
Bright enough for the unaided eye +14
Bigger on the sky than the full Moon +12
Nebula +8
Has a proper name +8
Bright deep-sky object +6

Total score 62

16 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

Nebula · +8
Bright deep-sky object · +6
Has a proper name · +8
Star-forming region · +14
Bigger on the sky than the full Moon · +12
Bright enough for the unaided eye · +14

Trivia

What it actually is

What it actually is. An H II region: a cloud of hydrogen being ionised by the ultraviolet flood from hot young stars inside it. Every one is a star factory caught mid-production.

Find it in the sky

How to spot it. At magnitude 4 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Cygnus.
Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north you are.
Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around August — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

Its true colour. That signature crimson is hydrogen-alpha at 656 nanometres — electrons falling back onto protons, one photon at a time.

What's in a name

Named. Notable enough to have earned a proper name, not just a catalogue number.

How we came to know it

The New General Catalogue. Its NGC number comes from J. L. E. Dreyer's 1888 catalogue, itself built on decades of sky sweeps by William Herschel and his sister Caroline.

Properties

constellation: Cyg
dso type: HII
mag: 4
name: North America Nebula
named: yes
size arcmin: 120

Nearby objects

About North America Nebula

North America Nebula is an epic nebula. It sits in the constellation Cyg and shines at apparent magnitude 4.

An H II region: a cloud of hydrogen being ionised by the ultraviolet flood from hot young stars inside it. Every one is a star factory caught mid-production.

How to see it

Look for North America Nebula in the constellation Cyg. At apparent magnitude 4, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, North America Nebula is best seen from a dark site away from city lights, and when it is above the horizon depends on your latitude and the time of year. The visibility panel above works out tonight's viewing window for your saved location.

Why North America Nebula is an epic nebula

North America Nebula scores 62 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 16 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Nebula, Bright deep-sky object, Has a proper name, Star-forming region, Bigger on the sky than the full Moon and Bright enough for the unaided eye — each earned for a real, measurable property of the object. Rarity on Spacedle is never random: the more remarkable an object's astrophysics, the more badges it collects, the higher it scores, and the rarer it ranks.