IC 2177 The Seagull Nebula

This is a Telescope Live dataset, acquired by the AUS-2 OTA (Takahashi 106FSQ), at the Heavan's Gate Observatory in Australia.

The quality of the data provided by the full frame QHY CMOS camera was good which made the post processing relatively simply since there were no glaring problems to resolve.

I used the Ha channel to create an additional synthetic Lum image which was added back in the LRGB channel combination process to enhance the detail in the nebula and dimmer areas.

The data was acquired over the month of November 2023 and it dataset was short of Oiii data due to weather. As a result the Oiii channel was not as well represented in the data set as the Ha an Sii. The object placement/orientation in the imaging frame was such that a lot of the region to the left of frame was clipped when it need not have been. The final image I've presented in rotated 90 deg and cropped from the top and bottom to eliminate a substantial amount of dead space in the image that was a result of issue with the framing vs. the sensor orientation.

Despite these issues, the CMOS imaging from AUS-2 reveals subtle details and structures that its previous CCD camera could not reveal. In the SHO palette this target and its surrounding nebula becomes a rainbow of color, making me think more of a parrot than a seagull.