Pictures of the Pelican Nebula

The Pelican Nebula is a star-forming region about 30 lightyears wide located 1,800 lightyears from Earth.

It is also known as IC 5070 and IC 5067, and is found near bright star Deneb in the Cygnus constellation.

You can find Deneb by spotting the Summer Triangle, one of our favourite summer constellations and asterisms.

The Pelican Nebula is a type of object known as an emission nebula, because the hydrogen gas itself is actually emitting light (as opposed to a reflection nebula, in which cosmic gas is lit up by light from young stars).

Over the years the nebula has been given the name 'Pelican Nebula' because of its similarity in appearance to the long-billed bird.

The nebula is separated from the North America Nebula by just a thin dark dust cloud known as L935.

The Pelican Nebula is a fascinating area for study because it is an active mix of star formation and evolving clouds of cosmic gas.

It's one of many nebulae that look like animals, and belongs to an even more specific class of nebulae that look like birds, such as the Eagle Nebula (M16) and the Owl Nebula (M97).

Below is a selection of images of the Pelican Nebula captured by astrophotographers and BBC Sky at Night Magazine readers.

For advice on photographing nebulae, read our guide to deep-sky astrophotography, or, if you're just starting out in photographing the sky, read our basic guide to astrophotography.

And whatever you manage to photograph, don't forget to send us your images or share them with us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.