Messier 16 - The Eagle Nebula / Pillars of Creation
Date: June 22, 2020
Cosgrove’s Cosmos Catalog ➤#0035
Messier 16 - The Eagle Nebula, showing the “Pillars of Creation” as captured by my William Optics 132mm platform and a OSC camera. (click to enlarge)
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About the Target
M16, known most commonly as the Eagle Nebula, is also known as the Star Queen Nebula and the Spire. This is a rich open cluster of about 8100 stars surrounded by a rich region of gas and dust. Located towards the south during the summer season, M16 can be seen in the constellation Serpens and is located about 5100 light-years away. This area has been made famous by the Hubble Space Telescope classic image: The Pillars of Creation in 1995.
The Annotated Image
Annotated version of M16 - created with Pixinsight ImageSolve and AnnotateImage scripts.
The Location in the Sky
IAU/Sky & Telescope Constellation Map for Serpens - Messier 16 indicated with the yellow arrow.
About the Project
The first time I shot this was last October when I was just starting out in Astrophotography. I was eager to try this one again to see if I was able to improve on it.
I have been working on my automation and I was all set to have the scope acquire the target, center on it, focus the camera, and startup the guider all on its own. I went to bed! I set a timer to check on it and it was a good thing I did - as my Sequence Generator Pro software was failing to plate solve the starfield. Hmmm - this had not happened before - but it caused the start of my series to be late. I restarted the software and suddenly all was good. I was aiming for 2+ hours of exposure integration but instead ended up with 29 2-minute exposures - Less than half of what I wanted - before M16 set into the trees at my location.
I went back a few days later and collected 50 more 2-minute exposures - added with the first night, which gives me just shy of 80 subs. I then reprocessed it, using some new processing tools, and cropped it in a bit tighter to show off the eagle better. I think I like this version better. What do you think?
Previous Effort
Taken in the Summer of 2019
More Information
Wikipedia Entry: Messier 16
NASA: Hubble Space Telescope image of “The Pillars of Creation”
Capture Details
Lights Frames
79 x 120 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C, Gain UNity
Total of 2.6 hours
Cal Frames
not recorded.
Capture Hardware
Scope: Astrophysics 130mm Starfire F/8.35 APO refractor
Guide Scope: Televue 76mm Doublet
Camera: ZWO AS2600mm-pro with ZWO 7x36 Filter wheel with ZWO LRGB filter set,
and Astronomiks 6nm Narrowband filter set
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290Mini
Focus Motor: Pegasus Astro Focus Cube 2
Mount: Ioptron CEM60
Polar Alignment: Polemaster camera
Software
Capture Software: PHD2 Guider, Sequence Generator Pro controller
Image Processing: Deepsky Stacker, Pixinsight, Photoshop - assisted by Coffee, extensive processing indecision and second-guessing, editor regret and much swearing…..
During August and September I was out shooting every clear night. I had learned a lot of things but I was also noticing several issues that were causing me problems as I did more imaging. I decided to do something to address those issues….