LBN 777 The Baby Eagle Nebula

LBN 777, also known as the Baby Eagle Nebula or Vulture Head Nebula, is a delicate reflection nebula located within the Taurus Molecular Cloud complex, recognised as one of the closest stellar nurseries to our Solar System. Its distinctive shape, sculpted from interstellar dust and faintly illuminated by surrounding field stars, resembles the head of a bird — a feature that has inspired its popular names. The object was catalogued in 1965 by Beverly Lynds as entry 777 in her Catalogue of Bright Nebulae.

Situated at a distance of roughly 430 light-years, LBN 777 spans nearly one degree across the sky, corresponding to a true size of about six light-years. Its central region coincides with the dense dark nebula Barnard 207 (LDN 1491), a molecular gas cloud that blocks background starlight and provides striking contrast to the softly illuminated dust surrounding it. Infrared observations from the Spitzer and Herschel missions have revealed at least one embedded protostar within B207, while millimetre-wave studies show the presence of CO outflows and complex organic molecules — tracers of the early chemical environment that precedes planetary system formation.

Surrounding Region

The area surrounding LBN 777 forms part of the broader Taurus–Perseus Molecular Cloud network, one of the nearest and best-studied stellar nurseries in our cosmic neighbourhood. The field is threaded with faint filaments of reflection and dark nebulosity. These structures mark the transition zone between the reflection-dominated Taurus region and the emission-rich expanses stretching towards Perseus and Auriga.

Image Acquisition

This image of LBN 777 was captured using both of my telescopes: the Takahashi TOA-150 and the Takahashi FSQ-106N.

The project was carried out entirely in broadband, employing a pure RGB approach to reproduce the natural colours of this reflection-dominated region.

For the TOA-150, I used Astrodon filters, while for the FSQ-106N, Baader filters were employed. The two image sets were later registered and combined to take advantage of the complementary strengths of both optical systems — the TOA-150 providing fine structural detail and the FSQ-106N offering a wider field and excellent colour balance.

The total integration time amounts to 42 hours.

 Image Processing

The processing workflow for this image differed slightly from my recent narrowband projects, as it was based entirely on pure RGB data.

After calibration and integration, I applied the MultiScaleGradientCorrection (MGC) tool to remove large-scale gradients, followed by colour calibration using SpectrophotometricColorCalibration (SPCC). The data from both telescopes — TOA-150 and FSQ-106N — were separately registered and combined, to take advantage of the higher resolution of the TOA and the broader colour depth provided by the FSQ.

The next step involved applying BlurXTerminator for fine-scale enhancement on both datasets. The FSQ image was then aligned to the TOA frame. I subsequently used StarXTerminator to temporarily remove the stars from both images, allowing the background nebulosity and overall colour balance to be processed independently.

Finally, I extracted the luminance from the TOA image and saved it separately for a later LRGB composition, combining it with the refined RGB image resulting from the integration of the TOA and FSQ colour data.

The first image on the right is a 100% resolution crop centred on LBN 777, where north is up. The second image shows the full widefield view; in this frame, the image has been rotated so that north lies to the west.

Click on the images for full resolution versions, or go to the Gallery section for complete exposure details.

Image processing: Pixinsight.

Observatory automation and remote operation with  Talon6..