History

On 24 October 1786 the German-British astronomer William Herschel discovered an open star cluster which he cataloged as VIII 58 (class VIII = coarsely scattered clusters of stars) which he described as «cluster of pretty large scattered stars, not very rich». In the same night he discovered a very large nebula which he cataloged as V 37 and noted: «very large diffused nebulosity, brighter in the middle, 7 or 8' long, 6' broad and losing itself very gradually and imperceptibly.» ^[464] Later the star cluster VIII 58 got the designation GC 4620 in John Herschels «General Catalogue» and NGC 6997 in John Dreyers «New General Catalogue». The nebula became known as NGC 7000. ^{[313, 467]} The name «North America Nebula» can be traced back to the German astronomer Dr. Max Wolf (1863-1932) because the outlines of the luminous H-II region with the dark cloud reminded him of it. ^[4] In February 2025 we renamed NGC 7000 from «North America Nebula» to «Mexico Nebula».

42 years later, on 28 October 1828 William Herschel son John discovered another «poor , little compressed cluster» which he cataloged first as h 2094 and then as GC 4617. That cluster received the designation NGC 6996 in John Dreyers «New General Catalogue». ^{[313, 467]}

Max Wolf took a picture of this region on 1 June 1891 and discovered further nebulae that were added as IC 5067 and IC 5070. On 7 September 1899 the British astronomer Thomas Espin reported another patch of this giant emission nebula which later got the designation IC 5067. ^[277]