The PMS Disk Population of the North America and Pelican nebulae

Much of our current knowledge regarding star-forming patterns and circumstellar disk evolution derives from study of molecular cloud complexes within a few hundred parsecs of the Sun. Among this group are a large number of lower-mass clouds such as Taurus and, more infrequently, dense clouds like Orion, which is the prototypical high-mass and high density star forming region. These nearby cloud complexes have served as our primary empirical guide to understanding the formation and early evolution of stars. However, they provide snapshots of just the extrema of the star formation process. It is important that we study more than

just the nearest examples or the extrema of star formation. The nearby ( 600 pc) North America and Pelican nebulae are regions of high mass star-formation beyond our local neighborhood and little-studied to date - however, both are well within the sensitivity regime provided by the Spitzer Space Telescope. We have conducted a large infrared imaging survey with Spitzer of these regions; our IRAC (3-8 µm) map covers 5 deg² and our MIPS (24-160 µm) map covers 6.2 square degrees. We have also obtained BVI CCD imaging for the 2x2 degrees central region. By combining IRAC and 2MASS data, we have found more than 700 sources with infrared excesses characteristic of young stellar objects (YSOs). We have created spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of each YSO candidate from optical (when available) to MIPS 70 µm. In this contribution, we discuss the proportions of the different YSO classes (I/II/flat/III), compare them to other star forming regions, and discuss their spatial distribution.