What i like best about this APOD is that the Seagull Nebula is really red. Because it
is really red. Yeah,
with the help of narrowband photography you can bring out other colors in it, but honestly, it's just so red.
What I don't like much about the APOD is that it doesn't bring out any blue light at all in any of the stars or in any parts of the nebula. That's bad, because there really are stars and small nebulas in the larger Seagull Nebula that really are bluish.
APOD 21 February 2024 detail annotated.png
Patrick Cosgrove's picture is a narrowband one, and the blue color probably means OIII. You can't be sure that an object that looks blue in a narrowband image would look blue in an RGB image, but this RGB+HαOIII picture by Matt Harbison shows FN CMa as blue, too:
So much for the color of today's APOD. An interesting aspect of the picture is that it makes the Seagull Nebula look absolutely huge in the sky. So how big is it really? The best I can do for you is how you this image of hydrogen alpha nebulas in the sky in black and white:
Orion and Seagull in Hα black and white mandarpotdar.png
Orion and Seagull in Hα.
So as you can see, the Seagull Nebula is smaller than Barnard's Loop in Orion (the big C-shaped thing in Orion). It's smaller than the Lambda Orionis Nebula (the big round thing to the upper right of Barnard's Loop). But it is a lot bigger than the Orion Nebula (the brilliantly bright small object inside Barnard's Loop).
But if you want to see the Seagull Nebula and its surroundings in its full glory, take a look at this gorgeous image by Matt Harbison:
Ann
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