M-17, the Swan Nebula, or Omega Nebula

A very pretty Deep Space Object both visually and photographically. This Nebula has 2 names, The Swan Nebula, or the Omega Nebula. To me it's clearly a swan, but that may be because I turned it about 180deg from it's natural orientation up in the heavens, and then the swan was clearly visible floating in the cosmos. If the ancients could have seen this, I wonder what legend they would have generated to explain its presence?

Notice the light pink color of this Nebula. A digital camera can see and accumulate color that the dark adapted human eye cannot. Most deep space objects are whitish hazes to our eye because the most light sensitive components of our eyes cannot see color. There are only a couple of objects that show color (even this one is not one of them, unless you have a Very large scope) but even then the objects seem only to have a greenish cast, and that because of all the colors, our eyes are most sensitive to green.

10" F6.3 Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope, Camera is a Canon 300D or Digital Rebel at prime focus
exposure is 300 seconds, ISO 800
 8 photos, each at the above exposure, averaged together, then brightness and contrast enhanced