The Seagull Nebula (IC 2177)

The Seagull Nebula (IC 2177) is a large emission nebula on the Monoceros–Canis Major border, about 3,800 light-years away. Ionized hydrogen glows red across the “wings,” while the OIII-rich core shows up in teal. Dark dust lanes and bright-rimmed pillars add depth, and faint outer Ha structure sweeps around the complex. I shot it from Bortle 9 city skies in Jaipur, India, combining about 30 hours of data from 10-15 December 2025 with a further 3-4 hours on 12-13 October 2026. – Aquib Ali Ansari, Captured by Aquib (@capturedbyaquib)

ZWO ASI533MC Pro camera (cooled one-shot-colour CMOS), Samyang 135mm lens at f/2.8, Optolong L-Ultimate 2" dual-narrowband (Ha + OIII) filter, Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi mount, ASIAIR Plus controller. 360 × 300 s exposures (about 30 hours total integration), gain 100.

Each night’s data was calibrated and stacked separately in Siril, then the nights were combined. Ha and OIII were separated by channel splitting and mapped to colour with PixelMath using the HOO palette (Ha to red, OIII to green and blue). Final adjustments were done in Adobe Photoshop.