IC 2177 - in HA LIGHT

THE SEAGULL NEBULA IN MONOCEROS

 (ra: 07.05,1/ dec -10:42)

February  2010, Complejo La Aldea - Villa de Merlo San Luis, Argentina

DATA

TYPE: Bright Emission and Reflection Nebula

Visual Brightness: n/a

Apparent Diameter: 120 arc minutes

DISTANCE: 3800 lights years

IMAGE INFORMATION

SCOPE: William Optics Zenithstar 66 with WO 0.8 x fr/ff

CAMERA: SXVF H9

GUIDING: Celestron C8 SCT working at f6 (roughly)

IMAGE ACQUISITION: AstroArt 3.0 - Control Interface 3.72 plug in

FILTERS: Astronomik Ha 6 nm - Atik Filter Wheel

SKY CONDITIONS: rural skies with bright artificial lights - and seeing regular

EXPOSURES: HA (120) 12 X 10 minutes

PROCESSING: Median Combine in Images Plus, CCD Sharp, Photoshop CS2

OBJECT DESCRIPTION AND IMAGE SESSION

IC 2177 is a bright HII region located at the border of Monoceros and Canis Mayor. Located some 24 degrees to the south east of Orion and 8 degrees of Sirius. Because of its singular shape is also known as the Sea Gull Nebula. More than 2 degrees wide from wing to wing, is an extensive area gathering star clusters, star formation, and reflection star dust. The brightest portion or the "head of the bird" is NGC 2327 aka Gum 1. Its measures 19 x 17 arc minutes and its also have some reflection components. 

The FOV of the picture gives something like 97 arc seconds wide with a 4.18 arcsecs per pixel resolution. I had severe field rotation due a weak polar alignment for 10 minutes exposure so unfortunately I had to crop some 100 pixels from the original size.