Located 3,650 light-years from Earth, in the area between the Monoceros and Canis Major constellations, is the emission and reflection nebulae complex of the so-called Seagull Nebula.  It’s been 8-years since I last briefly dabbled with imaging this exciting object and for good reason.  From my position, this bird flies at a maximum 28^o above the southern horizon (-11 DEC) and, furthermore, spends much of its time behind houses, trees, and tall hedges, thus providing just two short windows for imaging; combined with this winter’s terrible weather it made for a tough but ultimately rewarding target. 

Whilst popularly known as the Seagull Nebula, the bird consists of a number of fabulous objects spanning some 200 light-years in their entirety: the Seagull’s head (SH2-292) and wings (IC 2177), the large open star cluster along the leading edge of the left wing (NGC 2335) and a smaller cluster on the edge of the right wing (NGC 2327), the nebula at the tip of the right wing (Sh2-297), as well as many other named features (Sharpless and LBN) that are highlighted in the following plate solved image (below).

Despite the difficulties posed by the low transit of the bird in the night sky, each of the Ha, OIII and SII wavelengths are strong, making for good data acquisition and a very pleasing final SHO image.