Messier 16 (M16 or the Eagle Nebula) is technically an open cluster with the nebula identifying as IC 4703. The nebula is an emission nebula (HII Region) and is a star-forming region.
The Eagle Nebula is well known for the pillars of creation, made famous by the Hubble Space Telescope, and is situated in the Sagittarius Arm of the milky way in the constellation of Serpens which was first discovered by Jean-Philippe de Cheseaux in 1745. |
The star cluster, which has approximately 8000 stars is situated in the gap of the molecular cloud, is approximately 1-2million years old and is roughly 5700Ly away.
This object was easy to target and fitted into the camera lens with ease with the target being centred using M16 coordinates. 10-minute exposures were used with the L-eXtreme with the pillars clearly visible in a single 10-minute exposure.
A total of 3 hours and 30 minutes of total exposure in a single night (Joys of the summer solstice) and I feel this could do with a little more exposure time. The core is bright and there is a lot of detail on the edges and the pillars themselves. So potentially an extra night on this target is going to make the difference.
This object was easy to target and fitted into the camera lens with ease with the target being centred using M16 coordinates. 10-minute exposures were used with the L-eXtreme with the pillars clearly visible in a single 10-minute exposure.
A total of 3 hours and 30 minutes of total exposure in a single night (Joys of the summer solstice) and I feel this could do with a little more exposure time. The core is bright and there is a lot of detail on the edges and the pillars themselves. So potentially an extra night on this target is going to make the difference.
I’ve been fascinated by this target since I was a kid and to finally take a picture of this target which I should have done a long time ago and I’m glad I’ve finally got to. So many targets to choose from and this one has been struck off my list.
The Processing was done slightly differently in Pixinsight than my usual nebula routine. Due to the bright core in the centre of the nebula. My usual S curve was slightly different, since the S curve exposes the core more, bleaching out the stars and details. So, an Inverted S curve was used to lower the central core for the details – an N curve as such. Dark Structure Enhance was also used for the dark nebula clouds in the middle upper left.
The Processing was done slightly differently in Pixinsight than my usual nebula routine. Due to the bright core in the centre of the nebula. My usual S curve was slightly different, since the S curve exposes the core more, bleaching out the stars and details. So, an Inverted S curve was used to lower the central core for the details – an N curve as such. Dark Structure Enhance was also used for the dark nebula clouds in the middle upper left.
With the recent upgrade to my equipment. The RASA 8 has not disappointed with this new picture. The M16 is a clear favourite of mine (Next to the Veil Nebula) and this picture blows my mind away with how short the exposures were!
2 minute exposure times for 1 hour! are the same processing as the previous, but the detail, the difference is very obvious and future exposures of this will make it pop out even further.
2 minute exposure times for 1 hour! are the same processing as the previous, but the detail, the difference is very obvious and future exposures of this will make it pop out even further.
Above left and right are two different processing methods. While the left is heavily cropped, it has a lot more detail teased out of the picture. The right side picture negatively used curves. Instead of the usual S curve, the curve line was dragged down creating an exponential-style graph. The negative to this is you remove a lot of the data with it. HDR was also used in this process for the pillars of creation.
The left side picture used a mask to isolate the central location and HDR was then used to remove the bright core to show the pillars. This method also removes a lot of the colour from the pillars.
The left side picture used a mask to isolate the central location and HDR was then used to remove the bright core to show the pillars. This method also removes a lot of the colour from the pillars.