This image captures a series of objects located in a beautiful starfield in the constellation of Monoceros at a declination of -10 degrees. I have included an annotated image to assist with the description below.
The central star cluster in the image is NGC 2353. My closeup Astrobin image of this cluster is
here, although the orientation is different. This is an open star cluster located 3400 light years away. The 7th magnitude cluster of 100 stars spans 18 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to a diameter of 18 light years. The brightest star seen here, the beautiful blue 6th magnitude star HD 55879, is not an official member of the cluster. Below this cluster is the uninteresting small asterism NGC 2351.
To the upper left is the bright emission nebula LBN 1036. Within this nebula is a uniquely shaped, but faint and tiny, planetary nebula We 2-37.
To the upper right is the interesting emission area known as Sh2-294. My closeup Astrobin image of this emission is
here. The bright red circular patch is similar to the head of the nearby Seagull Nebula, but is much smaller at only 7 minutes across. Distance estimates of this object vary but most are around 5,000 light years away. One half of the nebula is bisected by numerous dark dust lanes. The nebula is hiding a young double cluster of stars.
More faint but also interesting, a vertical band of reddish emission is apparent to the right of Sh2-294. I could find nothing in the literature which describes this emission.
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