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M16 (The Eagle Nebula)

The Eagle Nebula in Serpens The Eagle Nebula in Serpens ©2024 Frederick Steiling
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Target Information
Main Target Designations M16 (The Eagle Nebula)
RA Center 18h 18m 51.856s
DEC Center -13° 48' 26.18"
Rotation -0.288° (North is up)
Pixel Scale (as posted) 0.806 arcseconds/pixel
Exposures
SiiHaOiii 1040'/1060'/1000'
Sii subframes 52 x 1200" @ 1x1
Ha subframes 53 x 1200" @ 1x1
Oiii subframes 50 x 1200" @ 1x1
Total Integration 51hrs 40min
Period of Acquisition May/Jun/Jul 2020
Location Animas, NM
Equipment
Imager SBIG STF-8300M
Telescope/Lens TS Optics N-AG12 12" Newtonian Astrograph @ f/4.56
Mount Mesu 200 Mk II
Guiding Apparatus OAG-8300
Guiding Camera QHY5L-II
Filter Wheel FW8-8300
Narrowband Filters Astrodon Ha 5nm, Oiii 3nm, Sii 3nm
Accessories
Coma Corrector TS Optics 3" N-AGK3
Collimator Howie Glatter 650nm laser
Focusing Feather Touch True 3.0" with Focus Boss II
Software
Acquisition Sequence Generator Pro
Guiding PHD2
Processing PixInsight 1.8

Overstating the seemingly infinite depth in this area is downright impossible. What a remarkably gorgeous corner of our universe, and fortunately for us, it sits less than 6000 light years away in our own galaxy!

Littered with countless pillars and chutes of gas, all harbingers of star formation, the Eagle Nebula truly came to popularity with the release of the infamous Pillars of Creation photo as acquired from Hubble, first captured in 1995.  The entire area is shrouded in glowing Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Sulphur gasses (highlighted respectively here by a green, blue, and red highlights) with a glow made possible by the energy offered from more than 8100 stars clustered throughout the area, the brightest of which (HD 168076) alone has a mass more than 80 times that of our own sun, and is more than 1 million times brighter!  The entire region reveals incredible stellar evoluation and birth, all embedded within beautiful pockets and folds of gas.

It's always a treat to image something that has significant signal - at least by astrophoto standards!  Each integrated gas frame had so much signal throughout the entire field that noise reduction was almost completely unnecessary, something that I don't recall ever being the case in one of my images.  While the detail in the knotty ends of the various gas pillars throughout the image is truly remarkable, some of my favorite features are the delicate edges of Oxygen (blue) painting the backdrop behind the "louder" hydrogen and sulphur fireworks, something that is even more apparent in my starless rendition of the area.  Together, these characteristics give a very 3D-like depth to an area of our universe that simply cannot be overlooked.

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