• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Cosmic Pursuits

Basic astronomy and night sky information

  • Subscribe
  • Start Here
  • Articles
  • Sky This Month
  • Courses
  • About
  • Contact

star cloud

The Cygnus Star Cloud

August 30, 2023 by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Deep Sky

The constellations Cygnus and Lyra and the northern Milky Way and Great Rift. The Cygnus Star Cloud lies in a diagonal near center, with Deneb and the North America Nebula at upper left and Vega at upper right. Sadr and IC1318 lie to the left and above center. Image credit and copyright: Brian Ventrudo/CosmicPursuits.com.

As northern summer nights grow longer in August and September, the big constellation Cygnus lies nearly overhead before midnight and offers dozens of colorful nebulae and star clusters for visual observers and astrophotographers. The newly discovered Radcliffe Wave begins here. So does the dark and dusty Great Rift that splits the band of Milky Way in two. Cygnus also contains the brightest section of the northern Milky Way in the grand Cygnus Star Cloud, the most prominent star cloud north of the celestial equator. With a pair of low-power binoculars or with just your dark-adapted eyes, this billowing collection of millions of stars along an arm of our galaxy offers as beautiful a sight as any earthly work of art or nature [Read more…] about The Cygnus Star Cloud

Share This:
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

Filed Under: Deep Sky cygnus, star cloud

Primary Sidebar

Subscribe to Cosmic Pursuits

Subscribe to our e-mail newsletter for free astronomy tips and updates

Featured Astronomy Course


Search This Site

Recent Posts

  • Our Sun’s Lost Sibling
  • Galaxy Hopping with a 2-Inch Telescope
  • The Winter Milky Way
  • Winter Reflection Nebulae
  • Gaia Space Telescope Simulation of the Milky Way

Copyright © 2025 Mintaka Publishing Inc.