A broad expanse of glowing gas and dust presents a bird-like visage to astronomers
from planet Earth, suggesting its popular moniker - The Seagull Nebula. This portrait of the cosmic bird covers a 1.6 degree wide swath across the plane of the Milky Way,
near the direction of Sirius, alpha star of the constellation Canis Major. Of course,
the region includes objects with other
catalog designations: notably
NGC 2327, a compact, dusty emission region with an embedded massive star that forms the bird's head (aka the Parrot Nebula, above center). Dominated by the
reddish glow of atomic hydrogen, the complex of gas and dust clouds with bright young stars spans over 100 light-years at an estimated 3,800 light-year distance.
This rendition represents approximately 4.4 hrs of integration; data acquisition was with an Esprit 100ED refractor and a ZWO ASI2600MC-P OSC w/L-Extreme filter.
The nebula is slightly larger than the FoV available with this OSC/OTA combination; I prefer to retain the bright star forming region at the bottom right/tip of the Seagull's wing, so I have to sacrifice some of the dimmer nebulosity of the other wing to the left of image.
I feel like I had a much better result that my first attempt at this target in 2020. There is more detail and more of the nebular structure visible in this version.
Enjoy!!!
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