Ionization Front in the Pelican

This is an image of the ionization front of the Pelican Nebula in the constellation of Cygnus the swan.  The Pelican Nebula is actually a much larger object and is a close neighbor of the much better known North American Nebula.

The light from young energetic stars is slowly transforming the Pelican's cold gas into hot gas, with the advancing boundary between the two known as an ionization front.  Most of these bright stars lie off the top of the image, but part of the bright ionization front crosses on the upper right.  Particularly dense and intricate filiments of cold gas are visible along the front. 

This is an early SSRO effort in which we achieved better than average framing and should have collected a lot more data.