The Eye of Ra (SH2-261 Lower's Nebula) (Franklin Marek)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Orion (Ori) · Contains: 67 Ori · 67 nu. Ori · 69 Ori · 69 f01 Ori · HD41593 · HD41602 · HD41640 · HD41997 · LBN 862 · LBN 863 · LBN 864 · LDN 1587 · Sh2-261 · The star f1 Ori · The star ν Ori

The Eye of Ra (SH2-261 Lower's Nebula)

Makes you wonder if the ancient Egyptians were doing astrophotography as this object resembles the Eye of Ra!

More commonly known as Lower's Nebula or SH2-261. It is a gorgeous nebula with a central lake of blue OIII and an interesting shoreline of pillars that the SII really adds a lot of detail to. There is also a very dim region of Ha above the main nebula with a very faint defined cloud. I also was not able to find much information on the central OIII structure that makes a couple expanding bubble regions in the core of the nebula either (I added a close in of just the OIII core). There just doesn't seem to be a lot of study on this particular object in the literature. There is even disagreement as to its distance, but the nearest estimate is over 1000 parsecs.

Comments appreciated!

My video on the nebula: https://youtu.be/GNswqmBo3eg

Some close in crops:
Southern Shore

OIII core:

Western bank:

Eastern shore:

Dark Shadows (Dim Ha emission clouds):

Blue Lagoon:

Final
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Title: Starless

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	9056007
PixInsight job	G4WE7UH7KRS8W4P855ME6HLT3XZ5Q00H
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	06h09m21s.258
RA (top/left)	06h12m21s.686
RA (top/right)	06h06m13s.910
RA (bottom/right)	06h06m22s.634
RA (bottom/left)	06h12m27s.478

Dec (center)	+15°46′51″.14
Dec (top/left)	+16°48′31″.27
Dec (top/right)	+16°47′12″.14
Dec (bottom/right)	+14°45′00″.20
Dec (bottom/left)	+14°46′19″.84

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The Eye of Ra (SH2-261 Lower's Nebula)

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