Image Links | |
Published image | Full resolution |
Annotated image | Full resolution |
Starless Image | Full resolution |
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.