Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Monoceros (Mon)  ·  Contains:  HD52942  ·  HD53010  ·  HD53035  ·  HD53060  ·  HD53086  ·  HD53240  ·  HD53302  ·  HD53303  ·  HD53367  ·  HD53429  ·  HD53455  ·  HD53456  ·  HD53458  ·  HD53594  ·  HD53623  ·  HD53689  ·  HD53690  ·  HD53755  ·  HD53824  ·  HD53856  ·  HD53907  ·  HD53931  ·  HD53947  ·  HD53974  ·  HD53975  ·  HD54004  ·  HD54025  ·  HD54084  ·  HD54105  ·  HD54141  ·  And 37 more.
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
IC2177 Seagull Nebula in HOO, Nicola Beltraminelli
Powered byPixInsight

IC2177 Seagull Nebula in HOO

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
IC2177 Seagull Nebula in HOO, Nicola Beltraminelli
Powered byPixInsight

IC2177 Seagull Nebula in HOO

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

The Seagull nebula or IC2177 is maybe a bit less renown than the classical deepsky objects of the northern sky. This is possibly related to its position near to the horizon (is barely over 30°C at the meridian for me). This proximity to the horizon is challenging because of course it is not so straight forward to achieve a highly detailed image. 

So, I tried to shoot nearly 200 images of 180s in Ha with a reasonable seeing and to my surprise I could detect most of the fine details of this beautiful nebula. Due to the limited time to shoot it, I limited this first attempt to an HOO image, but I will probably add the S layer, as well as a new series of Ha images to get more out of it next year.

A few words on the nebula. IC2177 is a complex of gas and dust that forms the head of the seagull glows brightly in the sky due to the strong ultraviolet radiation coming mostly from one brilliant young star — HD 53367 — that can be spotted in the centre of the Seagull's head and could be taken to be the seagull’s eye.The radiation from the young stars causes the surrounding hydrogen gas to glow with a rich red colour and become an HII region . Light from the hot blue-white stars is also scattered off the tiny dust particles in the nebula to create a contrasting blue haze in some parts of the picture.Although a small bright clump in the Seagull Nebula complex was observed for the first time by the German-British astronomer Sir William Herschel back in 1785, the part shown here had to await photographic discovery about a century later.
Reference: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1237/

Comments

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

IC2177 Seagull Nebula in HOO, Nicola Beltraminelli