van den Bergh 93, Sharpless 292

vdB93, Sh2-292, IC 2177

In the image above, north is to the left and west is up.

In 1966, Sidney van den Bergh produced a catalog of bright nebulae with embedded stars using both the blue and red prints of the Palomar Sky Survey. Number 93 in his catalog is located right on the border between the constellations Monceros and Canis Major and is not an isolated nebula, but a northwestern extension of IC 2177, the Seagull or Eagle Nebula. vdB 93, which is also designated Sharpless 292, forms the "head" of the bird. It contains both emission and reflection nebulosity, as well as a dark filament portruding into the nebula from the eastern side right up to the central star. vdB 93 contains gas which is partially ionized. It is illuminated by radiation and also by reflection, mostly from HD 53367, the young and massive giant star at its center. This star is the primary component of a binary system that also includes a smaller star, surrounded by a protoplanetary disk, which has a very eccentric orbit around the primary.

IC 2177 - Seagull Nebula, Wright-Newtonian photograph.

Exposure Data

Instrument: 9.5" f/4.9 Newtonian
F/stop: 5.6
Exposure: 7 x 10 min + 6 min
Camera: Canon 350D with Baader UV-IR-Cut-Filter
Sensitivity: ISO 800
Date: January 15, 2007
Exposure start: 23:25 MESZ
Location: Ebenwaldhöhe, Lower Austria
Conditions: Visual limiting magnitude 6.3 mag, seeing 2/5, temperature 6.5°C, no wind, low humidity
Autoguider: Meade Pictor 216 XT, max. error: 2" (RA) / 1" (Dec);
Enhancement: Basic data reduction, combine, background flattening, logarithmic curves, destriping, star size reduction, noise filtering, local contrast enhancement, color correction
Notes: During processing, I had a hard time correcting for uneven background illumination due to the low altitude of the object.

Back to Nebulae

Up to the Gallery of Astrophotography

Home to astro.nightsky.at

Print Purchase Info