APOD

This is the "Pelican Nebula," IC5070, in the Cygnus Nebula. Honestly, astronomers are way too imaginative. To me, this looks more like some sort of lopsided smiley face. This baby is about 2,000 light years away, and,in the night sky, is found just off the eastern coast of the North American nebula. Very peculiar in this nebula is the cosmic emission visible in this overexposed photo. It's rather huge. The photo itself spans some 30 light years. The original photos were showed much greater depth and resolution, but for practical purposes, the image was scaled down for the web (100 meg .TIFF to 1.5 meg .JPG). The Pelican Nebula is undergoing much change, as its star clusters continue to give birth to stars and evolve. On a few million years, this nebula won't even be recognizable.