nebula The Lagoon Nebula ( Messier 8, NGC 6523 ) in Sagittarius

[MikeODay]

The Lagoon Nebula ( Messier 8, NGC 6523 ) in the constellation Sagittarious.

 

( click on image to see larger)

 

The Laboon Nebula ( M8 ) is visible to the naked eye under dark skies from most latitudes except the far north. Seemingly covering an area about three times that of the full Moon, M8 actually covers an area somewhat greater than 110 light years and is around 4300 light years from Earth in the Sagittarius-Carina spiral arm of the Milkyway galaxy.

......

The frames for this image where taken back when I was very new to astrophotography and I was experimenting with camera settings.  On this occasion I wanted to see if JPEG images might be easier to process - I was disappointed with the results.  Now that I have a bit more knowledge and skill at processing I decided to have another attempt at trying to process the set because I liked the way the JPEG files had retained colour in the stars.  I am reasonably pleased with the result; the faint detail in the nebula is not there but I quite like the colours in the centre and in the stars.

Details:

Messier 8, NGC 6523 - Lagoon Nebula
Skywatcher Quattro 10" f4 Newtonian telescope.
Skywatcher AZ Eq6 GT Mount.Orion auto guider - PHD2.
Baader MPCC Mark 3 Coma Corrector.
Nikon D300 (unmodified).
80 x 30 sec ISO 1600 (JPEG) - 31 Aug 14.
PixInsight and Photoshop.
processed 13 August 2016

Links:

https://500px.com/MikeODay

http://photo.net/photos/MikeODay

[Bonnylad]

One of my favourites using 7x50 bins. Brighter than Andromeda and relatively easy to find.

Thanks for posting.

[wimvb]

Great image. Unfortunately too far south for me. At best it only clears the (free) horizon only 6 degrees up here.

Thanks for sharing

[simmo39]

Oh I like that, v nice.

[laudropb]

Very nice capture.

[MikeODay]

Thanks Guys, much appreciated.

[MikeODay]

Re-processed to bring out a little more of the faint detail ...

[Bonnylad]

So if I'm correct, you've still captured some of the Ha band with an unmodded camera? Brilliant.

[MikeODay]

16 minutes ago, Bonnylad said:

So if I'm correct, you've still captured some of the Ha band with an unmodded camera? Brilliant.

Thanks John.

Yes - it still captures a reasonable amount of HA.  As I understand it, the D5300 is around a 1/4 as sensitive to HA than it would be if I could find somewhere to get it modified.

The version in the link below shows even more HA because I processed the raw (NEF) files to pull out more faint detail; in this version I processed the JPEG versions because I liked the colours.

 

cheers

Mike

[Bonnylad]

Cheers, Mike. Appreciated.

Keep up the good work.

[PatrickGilliland]

Hi Mike

Nice work you may find a little more lurking in there still with some HDRMT in PI but not too aggressively.  Think i will lift some of the background a little.

That said nice work, delicately processed and not 'in your face' - Paddy

[MikeODay]

Thanks Paddy, I've not tried HDRMT - I will have to look it up.

Cheers

Mike

[Rodd]

Beautiful image--wow!  Quattro huh?  Can't argue with this.  Very nice

 

Rodd

[wimvb]

On ‎2016‎-‎08‎-‎23 at 23:36, mike005 said:

Thanks Paddy, I've not tried HDRMT - I will have to look it up.

Cheers

Mike

HDRMT is a very powerful process in PI. But as Paddy already indicated, it has to be used with care. To aggressively, and the image will blow up in your face.

Another tool that can be used for revealing faint detail is exponential stretch.

 

Good luck

[MikeODay]

2 hours ago, wimvb said:

HDRMT is a very powerful process in PI. But as Paddy already indicated, it has to be used with care. To aggressively, and the image will blow up in your face.

Another tool that can be used for revealing faint detail is exponential stretch.

 

Good luck

Thanks Wim

My current workflow includes repeated application of the Marsked Stretch process with gradually increasing target background values..  I have not noticed a tool called 'Exponential Strech' so I will go looking for it.

Cheers

Mike

[wimvb]

4 hours ago, mike005 said:

Thanks Wim

My current workflow includes repeated application of the Marsked Stretch process with gradually increasing target background values..  I have not noticed a tool called 'Exponential Strech' so I will go looking for it.

Cheers

Mike

Probably because it's called ExponentialTransformation. My bad

[wimvb]

I just realised that ExponentialTransformation may actually be part of Carlos' modules for PI. As such it wouldn't be in the official release.

Here's a link.

http://pixinsight.com.ar/en/info/links/1/official-links.html

Scroll down to Carlos Milovic modules

[MikeODay]

 

48 minutes ago, wimvb said:

I just realised that ExponentialTransformation may actually be part of Carlos' modules for PI. As such it wouldn't be in the official release.

Here's a link.

http://pixinsight.com.ar/en/info/links/1/official-links.html

Scroll down to Carlos Milovic modules

Thanks Wim for the detail on the Exponential Transform tool and the link.  much appreciated.

Cheers

Mike

[MikeODay]

22 hours ago, Rodd said:

Beautiful image--wow!  Quattro huh?  Can't argue with this.  Very nice

 

Rodd

Thanks Rodd.

Cheers

Mike