Running Chicken Nebula

Running Chicken from the skies of KaggaKamma - IC 2944 When viewed as a whole, this nebular complex really resembles a running chicken, which is exactly how the famous Running Chicken Nebula got its nickname. It is a massive HII region located in the constellation Centaurus, about 6,500 light-years away. The field contains the regions Gum 39, Gum 40 / IC 2872, and Gum 41, corresponding respectively to the “head,” the “caruncles,” and part of the “body” of the chicken. Embedded within the nebula are the famous Bok globules — dense clouds of gas and dust where new stars are forming. Some of them even show jets of material emerging from deeply embedded young stellar objects. At the upper left of the field, a small planetary nebula is also visible: PN PK294-00.1 (Hen 2-72), recognizable by its bright OIII-rich core. Captured from the astronomical site of @kaggakammaastro @astrocapetown Remote Observatory South Africa, under Bortle 1 skies, with data acquired from first quarter Moon all the way to full Moon.