A close up view of the head and neck region of the Pelican Nebula in Cygnus (IC 5070).  It shows extensive nebulosity silhouetting a vast network of forking wisps and globules of dark dust. The bright region at lower right along the back of the Pelican's neck is a shock front caused by intrusion of a separate hydrogen cloud, IC 5067. The long elephant trunk extending in front of the neck can be seen to have 2 delicate tendrils extending in opposite directions from its tip. This is bipolar outflow material being ejected from opposite poles of a newborn star within the tip of the trunk and is known as Herbig-Haro 555. The star’s accretion disk develops static electrical charges whose rotation around the star sets up magnetic fields perpendicular to the disk. Those magnetic fields have poles, positive and negative, so they eject charged particles out along the field. If you look closely, you can see that the bipolar outflows are flexed gently back in the direction of the trunk. This is due to deflection by fierce stellar winds that are carving the elephant trunk itself. Several other Herbig-Haro objects are also visible in the image.

Exposures: Ha”R”G”B = 540:70:70:65 minutes =12 hours, 25 minutes total exposure.