The Pelican Nebula
IC 5070, also known as the Pelican Nebula, is an active star-forming region of nebulosity directly adjacent to the North America Nebula, located about 1,800 light years away.
August 21, 2025
I’m continuing my journey of revisiting old targets with new gear. This time it’s the Pelican Nebula - 7 hours captured with the C9.25, Hyperstar and Triband filter. I continue to be impressed with the results. Even with just 7 hours of integration, the data is much cleaner. My prior image of this target had almost the same integration time and was rather noisy, however, that image was done with only a UV/IR filter and a telescope that was 6x as slow! I also had scant processing skills and tools at the time, so revisiting my first attempt feels like a reflection of everything I’ve learned along the way. I used my new windbreak last night, and although it was generally effective, I think I’ve found its effective limit (not much more than 15-17mph gusts or 10+mph sustained winds). This is a little disappointing, but it is still very helpful in my area, as there’s typically a variable gentle breeze of 5mph winds with up to 15mph gusts. I may look into finding a similar focal length refractor so I can continue to image on the breezier evenings without the windbreak.
I was happy to see I captured some faint details - especially the Herbig-Haro Objects (bowshocks) on the pillar and around the heart of the nebula. HH555 can be seen in this image as the two small jets on top of the pillar in the image. Another 6 are present in the area as well.
Herbig-Haro Objects are an active, short-lived phase of star formation, lasting only about 100,000 years. A star forms from a collapsing cloud of cold hydrogen gas. As the star grows, it’s gravity attracts more material, creating a large spinning disc of gas and dust around it. The disc material gradually spirals onto the star and escapes as high velocity jets along the star’s axis of spin. The jet phase stops when the disc runs out of material, usually a few million years after the star’s birth.
They come in a wide array of shapes, though the basic structure is the same: Twin jets of heated gas, ejected in opposite directions from a forming star. When the jets slam into colder gas, they form heated, glowing shock fronts.
Technical Details
Imaging Telescope: Celestron C9.25 XLT
Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro
Mount: Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro
Filter: Antlia Tri-band RGB Ultra Filter - 2” Mounted
Accessories: Starizona Filter Drawer 2", Starizona HyperStar 9.25 v4, ZWO ASIAIR Plus, ZWO EAF
Software: StarNet, PixInsight, BlurXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, SetiAstro Statistical Stretch, SetiAstro Star Stretch, Siril, ZWO ASIAIR
Guiding Telescope: SVBony SV106 60mm Guide Scope
Guiding Camera: ZWO ASI174MM
Imaging Dates: August 19, 2025
Frames (gain 101.0) f/4.9 -10c: 140x180” (7h)
Integration Time: 7h
November 29, 2023
My first image of IC5070, a star forming region known as the Pelican Nebula. You’ll see at the bottom of the image that it is directly adjacent to the North America Nebula (you see the Florida Panhandle portion, and the littlest bit of the Cygnus wall (Yucatan Peninsula). I went back and learned an entirely new processing workflow primarily using the Siril software, and I can’t believe I waited so long to do so! It really helped bring out so much more of the variation in the the dark dust lanes. I’m very pleased with where this image ended up with about 6h15m integration time. I might just need to go back and reprocess all of the data I have for every other target!
Technical Details
Imaging Telescope: William Optics RedCat 51 II
Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro
Mount: Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro
Filter: SVBony UV/IR Cut 2”
Accessories: ZWO ASIAIR Plus, ZWO EAF, ZWO Filter Drawer (Gen 2)
Software: Siril, Photoshop, NoiseXterminator, Starnet
Guiding Telescope: William Optics UniGuide 32
Guiding Camera: ZWO ASI174MM
Imaging Dates: Nov. 27, 2023; Nov. 28, 2023
Frames (gain 101.0) f/4.9 -10c: 125×180″(6h15m)
Integration Time: 4h27m
Darks/Flats/Dark Flats: 30/30/30
Bortle Dark-Sky Scale: 4.00