This picture shows a nebular complex in the constellation of Cygnus that includes the North american nebula and the Pelican nebula (east and south) The three nebulas are in fact parts of the same interestellar cloud of ionized hydrogen (H-alpha region). There is a band of interestellar dust located between the Earth and the nebular complex. This dust intercepts the light of the nebulaes and it is responsible for the shape of them. The nebula Sharpless 119 (SH2 119) can be appreciated at the left part of the image.

Its distance to Earth is arround 2000 light years and the star responsible for ionizing the hidrogen is not precisely known but it can be a star located between the North american and the pelican that is obscured by the dust cloud (look just off the coast of "Florida" in the "Atlantic Ocean").

These nebulaes were discovered by William Herschel.