Tag: M16

M16 Eagle nebula

I am back home from Namibia, so I took the opportunity of a cloudless, moonless night to take my big Newtonian for a spin. The most prominent summer deep space object is obviously the Eagle nebula, so I pointed the telescope in the constellation Serpens and photographed this DSO whole night long. In total, I captured 64 images, each 5 minutes long.

Here is the “fake” Hubble color palette (SII, Ha, OIII):

And here is bi-color version (Ha, OIII, OIII):

TelescopeNewton 254/1000 mm
Aperture254 mm
Focal length950 mm
MountGemini G53f
AutoguidingZWO 174MM, TS 60/240 mm
CameraZWO 2600MM @-10°C
CorrectorMaxField coma corrector
FiltersAntlia Ha, OIII, SII 3 nm
Exposure64x300s, Gain 100, bin 1x1,
Date2022-07-03

M16 Eagle Nebula

Eagle Nebula is probably the most known deep space object, due to one picture from the Hubble Space Telescope. The pillars of creation were detected, where the new stars are born. I already captured this nebula by using narrowband filters and a monochrome camera. This time I used a different approach – a one-shot color camera + a new IDAS NB1 Nebula Filter. This filter should completely suppress the light pollution from sodium lamps and partially from LED lamps, passing the most interesting wavelength of H-alpha, OIII, and H-beta. In my opinion, it works well even in my light-polluted home.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 254/1000 mm
Aperture254 mm
Focal length950 mm
MountGemini G53f
AutoguidingZWO 174MM, TS 60/240 mm
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-5°C
CorrectorMaxField coma corrector
FiltersIDAS NB1 Nebula Filter
Exposure82x180s, Gain 95, bin 1x1,
Date2020-08-09

M16 Eagle nebula

Eagle nebula is a huge cloud of hydrogen gas. Probably the most famous picture of Hubble Space Telescope was taken here – Pillars of Creation. Here we can witness of a creation of new space objects. The hydrogen gas is attracted together and forms spherical object. As soon specific conditions occur, fusion reaction starts and star is born.

Eagle nebula was my first deep space object. However, I am not brave enough to publish my first picture here, because the quality was quite poor. I waited one year and made this picture with new equipment in decent quality. Since M16 is composed mainly from hydrogen alpha and has a little bit of OIII, I chose bi-color image. H alpha was inserted into red channel and OIII into green and blue.

M16_2015-08-05_300s-30C_11xOIII_11xHa_pixi