‘Head’ of Seagull Nebula – NGC2327

Seagull nebula (known as IC 2177) is a rather large nebula and has a shape resembling Seagull, but, my telescope’s magnification is too high for the entire nebula. See here for an image of the entire Seagull Nebula.

But, the so-called ‘head’ of this nebula has a very strong emission of hydrogen alpha gas so I decided to take an image of just that section. This section is also known as NGC 2327. Some people have named NGC 2327 as Parrot Nebula and I can see it resembling the shape of the beak of the parrot.

The 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 center of the image.

I took this image in narrowband over 15 hours (Hydrogen Alpha 25, Oxygen 11 and Sulphur 9 images of 20 minutes each).

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