The Pelican nebula is a very large, faint emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus. It is a region of active star formation which is thought to lie in our galaxy's next spiral arm, at a distance of about 1,500 light years from us. Since infrared light can penetrate the dust in star forming regions, we can use infrared observations to study details in these regions which cannot be seen using optical telescopes.
For this false-color Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) composite, the 8.28 µm band was mapped to the blue channel, the 12.13 µm band was mapped to the green channel, and the 14.65 µm band was mapped to the red channel. This image covers about 1.5 x 1.5 degrees in the sky.
Credit: MSX/IPAC/NASA