Swan Nebula (M17) in HOO and Ha mono

[glowingturnip]

Swan Nebula (M17) in bi-colour HOO.  I took this in the summer, but it's taken me a while to process it - various other hobbies and a nasty bout of flu got in the way !  Please click through for hi-res 🙂

 

And an upsampled detail in Ha monochrome:

 

17 each x 10min Ha and OIII, darks, flats and bias, equipment as per sig, processed in Pixinsight, taken in a dark sky sight in Spain.

 

The Swan Nebula, also known as the Omega Nebula or the Horseshoe Nebula (M17) is an H II region in the constellation Sagittarius. It is located in the rich starfields of the Sagittarius area of the Milky Way.  The Swan Nebula is between 5,000 and 6,000 light-years from Earth and it spans some 15 light-years in diameter. The cloud of interstellar matter of which this nebula is a part is roughly 40 light-years in diameter and has a mass of 30,000 solar masses. The total mass of the Swan Nebula is an estimated 800 solar masses.  It is considered one of the brightest and most massive star-forming regions of our galaxy. Its local geometry is similar to the Orion Nebula except that it is viewed edge-on rather than face-on.  The open cluster NGC 6618 lies embedded in the nebulosity and causes the gases of the nebula to shine due to radiation from these hot, young stars. It is also one of the youngest clusters known, with an age of just 1 million years.

 

For comparison, here's my previous attempt, taken with a modded DSLR:

 

Hope you like it, comments and CC welcome !

 

Stuart

 

Edited October 12, 2019 by glowingturnip

[alan potts]

What's this just for a laugh here's my previous attempt, it's better than my effort on the 40D. Lots going on in the new one lots of delicate detail and a superb capture of this target. Though I prefer the colour and framing of the previous one, even if it is better than mine. As for name, Swan is great for me it looks like one

[glowingturnip]

1 hour ago, alan potts said:

What's this just for a laugh here's my previous attempt

Oops !  I've reworded that now, so as not to denigrate my previous efforts, or by implication anyone else's... ahem.  I was actually very proud of that version, it spent a good amount of time as my pc wallpaper.

1 hour ago, alan potts said:

I prefer the colour and framing of the previous one

The framing is an interesting one - I wanted to present this as a tight crop to make that detail really pop out and to avoid that thing where if a detailed photo is zoomed out too far, then it just looks like over-sharpening rather than true detail.  Interested to see what people think though, here's the same photo without the crop (just don't laugh at my coma):

 

It's narrowband bicolour HOO, so false colour-ish. I quite like the redder tone, but it is subjective.

 

[alan potts]

Stuart,

Indeed the detail is wonderful in the first capture and I really like it but I also like the old one you have done. Lets face it with captures as good as these you have produced a selection of wide field and crops like seem to be posted now and all the better, its work of high quality.   I must try harder, I know I can get to this level but I am 2 hours is enough at the moment, which of course it isn't.

Alan