Click on the image for a full resolution version
See this image also on Instagram
LDN 935 or dark nebula L935 is a huge dust and cold gas nebula located just in front of NGC 7000, the North America Nebula and also between this one and the Pelican Nebula (IC 5070). Its distance was determined a few years ago, by the GAIA mission, to be 2,590 light years. This image shows LDN 935 with lots of detail and it shows also that the dark nebulae have more fine filaments than the ionized nebulae, mainly because their structures are not “carved” or wiped away by the stellar winds of very hot, young, massive stars, like the emission nebulae. This nebula is larger than shown here and hides from sight a very special star: J205551.3+435225. This star is not visible in this frame, just a few arcminutes off the lower right and it was detected only with infrared cameras in 2005, by Comerón and Pasquali. It is important because it is the hot star responsible for the ionization of NGC 7000 and IC 5070.
The image of LDN 935 shown here, depicts, in the whole North America Nebula, the area corresponding to the Gulf of Mexico, surrounded on the left by Yucatán (also called the Cygnus Wall), on top TX, LA, MS, AL and FL. The image has been taken with narrowband filters and color mapped to the natural palette. The image also shows that the nebula is not that dark and shows a great deal of detail inside it, even a couple of Herbig-Haro objects.
Additional Information
Object
Name(s): LDN 935. Gulf of Mexico
Type: Dark nebula
RA: 20h 56m 48s
Dec: +43º 52’ 00”
Constellation: Cygnus
Size (arcmin): 90×90 arcmin
Magnitude: NA
Distance: 2.590 ly
Image
Date: 2022-09-08 to 2022-10-19
Location: Curiosity2 Observatory, New Mexico Skies, Mayhill, NM, USA
Size (arcmin): 31×31 arcmin
Telescope: 24” (61 cm) f/6.5 Reflector
Camera: FLI PL16803 (4096x4096pix)
Guiding: Astrodon MonsterMOAG off-axis guider
Total exposure: 33h 40m (Ha: 10h 40m; OIII: 9h 20m; SII: 10h 40m; RGB: 3h)
Processing: CCDStack, PixInsight (one step) and Photoshop CC 2023