Lagoon Nebula (M8), my first Hubble Palette !

[glowingturnip]

16 each of 600s Ha, Sii and Oiii taken over 3 nights this summer, darks flats and bias, equipment as per sig, Pixinsight.

 

My first foray into full narrowband SHO, and I think I can say without contradiction that this is the best I've ever done !  Processing was rather a different mindset - much more of a case of respecting the data rather than pushing the data (virtually no noise reduction for a start).

Happy to hear any comments,suggestions, constructive c, etc - I think I'm happy with my colour palette, though of course I'm getting the usual thing of it looking completely different on different monitors even though they're supposedly calibrated.

 

The Lagoon Nebula (M8, NGC 6523) is a giant interstellar cloud in the constellation Sagittarius. It is classified as an emission nebula and as a H II region.  In the foreground is the open star cluster NGC 6530.  The Lagoon Nebula is estimated to be between 4,000-6,000 light years from the Earth and measures 110 by 50 light years.  The nebula contains a number of Bok globules (dark, collapsing clouds of protostellar material). It also includes a funnel-like or tornado-like structure caused by a hot O-type star that emanates ultraviolet light, heating and ionizing gases on the surface of the nebula.  The Lagoon Nebula also contains at its centre a structure known as the Hourglass Nebula (the densest, brightest part).  In 2006 the first four Herbig–Haro objects were detected within the Hourglass  (a Herbig-Haro object is where jets emitted from a newly forming star interact with surrounding nebulosity).

 

Just for fun, here are my first and second attempts at this object. I think I have them beat...

 

 

 

 

Hope you enjoy !

 

Stuart

 

[vlaiv]

I like it a lot!

First time I've seen such structure in central region. It's got quite 3D feel.

[glowingturnip]

Thanks Vlaiv.

Yes, I was very pleased with that.  Some of the structure is coming from the Sii, but what amazed me is how much detail I got from running deconvolution on the Ha.  This is a before/after on the Ha with just deconvolution between the two:

 

I've had deconvolution really 'pop' for lunar images before, but never for a deep sky image like this. 

[Allinthehead]

Fantastic image Stuart.

[glowingturnip]

thank you !

[peter shah]

superb results, stunning detail

[glowingturnip]

thanks Peter !

[MarsG76]

That looks really great... I love that detail... I imaged and recently processed my Lagoon nebula narrowband data and I'm glad that we both ended up with similar color hues...

 

[glowingturnip]

thanks very much mate 

I'm new to this narrowband lark, and it does seem like a bit of a lottery what colour balance I end up with !