The third-brightest star of Cygnus, called Gamma Cygni or Sadr (the bright star near the center of the photograph), is surrounded by a huge complex of emission nebulosity. The nebula, which extends well beyond the borders of this photograph, is excited by young, hot blue-white stars and separated by dark nebulae into at least five major parts. The brightest of these parts is IC 1318, the bisected nebula region east (left) of Gamma Cygni which is named the Butterfly Nebula because of its two-winged appearance. The large cloud of fainter emission east of Sadr has no name but the catalog number IC 1311. Also note the short but bright spike of nebulosity extending from Gamma Cygni towards the southeast. The total magnitude of the nebula complex is probably fairly high, but its light is spread out enough to make small parts of it dim.

Also worth mentioning is the open star cluster NGC 6910 half a degree north (above) and slightly east of Gamma. This group consists of 66 stars of 10th magnitude and fainter spanning an area of 8 arcminutes, with a combined magnitude of 7.4.

γ Cygni Nebulosity, Wright-Newtonian photograph.