Messier 20 - The Trifid Nebula
Date: June 11, 2020
Cosgrove’s Cosmos Catalog ➤#0030
Messier 20 - The Trifid Nebula (click to enlarge)
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About the Target
Messier 20, commonly known as the Trifid Nebula, is a Hydrogen II region in Sagittarius located about 5000 light-years from earth. The name "Trifid" means "divided into three lobes," This describes the impression when seen visually in a Telescope. This object combines an open cluster of stars, an emission nebula (the red portion), and a reflection nebula (the blue portion), making it a rich target for astrophotography. The dark lanes are concentrations of dust and gas that form nurseries for the formation of new stars.
The Open Cluster that can be seen on the bottom towards the left is M21.
The Annotated Image
Annotated image of M20 - done with Pixinsight ImageSolve and AnnotateImage Scripts.
About the Project
This is my first attempt on M20 and is the result of 27 images of two minutes each. Unfortunately, it was a very windy evening, and my guiding was the worse I have ever seen, but my star images still came out pretty round, so I appear to have gotten away with it!
Shot with a William Optics 132mm FLT APO refractor on an IOptron CEM60 mount. The camera was a ZWO ASI294MC-Pro. 30 Dark, 45 flat, and 45 bias calibration exposures. Processed via DeepSky Stacker, Pixinsight, and Photoshop.
The Location in the Sky
IAU/Sky & Telescope Constellation Map for Draco - Messier 20 indicated with the yellow arrow.
Capture Details
Light Frames
27 x 180 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C, unity gain,
Total of 0.90 hours
Cal Frames
30 Dark
45 flat
45 bias
Capture Hardware
Scope: William Optics 132mm f/7.0 FLT APO
Guide Scope: Sharpstar 61EDPHII
Camera: ZWO ASI1600mm-pro with ZWO Filter wheel with ZWO LRGB filter set,
and Astronomiks 6nm Narrowband filter set
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290Mini
Focus Motor: Pegasus Astro Focus Cube 2
Camera Rotator: Pegasus Astro Falcon
Mount: Ioptron CEM60
Polar Alignment: Polemaster camera
Click below to visit post about the Telescope version used for this image
Software
Capture Software: PHD2 Guider, Sequence Generator Pro controller
Image Processing: Deepsky Stacker, Photoshop - assisted by Coffee, extensive processing indecision and second-guessing, editor regret, and much swearing….. Given the problems on this image, more than the usual whining….
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….