Into the Depths of the Trifid Nebula

[SkyViking (Rolf)]

Hi Everyone,

The Trifid has always been one of my favourites, so a deep image of it has been a goal for me for a long time.
Using 5 different nights in June I managed to get just over 7 hours together, in between some other targets that I'm still working on. I actually wanted to get more RGB but the clouds and the Moon were not cooperating so I decided to process what I've got now. I was surprised by the amount of stuff around the Trifid itself which I think is not often imaged so deep.

Link to full res image (4MB): http://www.pbase.com/rolfolsen/image/144456519/original

Link to 50% size: (1.2MB): http://www.pbase.com/rolfolsen/image/144456926/original

Image details:
Date: 13th, 14th, 17th, 21st and 29th June 2012
Exposure: LRGB: 335:37.5:30:22.5m, total 7hrs 5mins @ -30C
Telescope: 10" Serrurier Truss Newtonian
Camera: QSI 683wsg with Lodestar guider
Filters: Astrodon LRGB E-Series Gen 2

About the image:
This image shows the famous Trifid nebula in Sagittarius, also known as Messier 20 or NGC 6514. This particular nebula is a classic favorite among both visual and photographic observers due to its bright and colourful appearence. The complex cloud displays an unusual combination of both red emission and blue reflection areas as well as numerous intricate dark patterns. The nebula is located 9000 light years away in the direction of the Milky Way centre. The entire area is sprinkled with thousands of stars and fainter dusty and nebulous areas throughout. Another dark cloud shows up silhouetted against the starry background to the left of the Trifid.
Near the top of the Trifid itself a curious example of gas evaporation can bee seen. A dense stalk, 8 light years from the central cluster, is emerging from the edge of the bubble surrounding the central cluster, and in the other direction a powerful stellar jet from a young star, HH 399 embedded in the gas, is shooting out in a direction towards the bottom right. The bright young stars in the central cluster emit strong radiation which eats away the surrounding gas and dust. The stalk only appears because a denser region lies at its very tip and protects a thin strip of the cloud from this interstellar erosion. The Hubble Space Telescope has imaged this fascinating area in high resolution. Also, the proper motion of the irradiated plasma in this jet has been measured and an interesting paper has been published detailing these findings.
Also, throughout the nebula lies countless young T Tauri stars just having emerged from their birthplaces inside the gas and dust. These are typically rather faint and reddish, though they are more easily visible in this image of another stellar nursery near Antares: http://www.pbase.com/rolfolsen/image/143590845/original

Hope you enjoy, comments and critique is welcome as always.

Regards,
Rolf

[Gem (Grant)]

Beautiful!

[Ross G]

Hi Rolf,

A beautiful close up.

Ross.

[RickS (Rick)]

A lovely, deep image, Rolf, with heaps of detail! I really enjoyed that!

[multiweb (Marc)]

That's a really cool shot Rolf. With your image scale you should give it a go in NB. I reckon it'd be hubblesque.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

The 50% size image looks great Rolf, nice crisp look with good accurate colour balance and I love the saturation! Some good resolution there too and that little jet is nicely showcased too.

The large version shows up the processing and noise a bit and some odd star shapes but never the less, to me it is certainly a great view especially if you shrink thsi big version to about 50% in your browser

You must look back at your web cam days with a little grin?

Mike

[DavidU (Dave)]

You nailed that !

[gregbradley]

Very very sharp and lots of resolution there.

An excellent image Rolf. Gee the standard is getting very high in this forum.

Greg.

[Stevec35 (Steve)]

Nicely done Rolf. A very pleasing view. I think those hills to the west of Auckland must be a pretty reasonable site.

Cheers

Steve

[CoolhandJo (Paul)]

Nice colours and detail!

[tilbrook@rbe.ne (Justin Tilbrook)]

Hi Rolf,

Beautiful colours in the nebula and stars, nice and sharp too!

Cheers,

Justin.

[Paul Haese]

I agree with Mike. Great colour saturation though.

[atalas]

Love the colors!very nice high res work Sky.

[midnight (Darrin)]

Very nice star colours Rolf and M20 is presented very nicely.

Darrin...

[SkyViking (Rolf)]

Originally Posted by Gem

Beautiful!

Thank you Grant

Originally Posted by Ross G

Hi Rolf,

A beautiful close up.

Ross.

Thanks Ross, I was happy to see it just fitting into the FOV like this.

Originally Posted by RickS

A lovely, deep image, Rolf, with heaps of detail! I really enjoyed that!

Thank a lot Rick This one is quite bright so it might be interesting to even try with something like a 2x powermate some day.

Originally Posted by multiweb

That's a really cool shot Rolf. With your image scale you should give it a go in NB. I reckon it'd be hubblesque.

Thank you Marc, yes I'm very happy with the native image scale. It gives me some good detail still within a reasonable time. Don't have any NB filters though, I'm still thinking of what to put in the last 4 empty slots in the filter wheel, IR would be interesting too

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

The 50% size image looks great Rolf, nice crisp look with good accurate colour balance and I love the saturation! Some good resolution there too and that little jet is nicely showcased too.

The large version shows up the processing and noise a bit and some odd star shapes but never the less, to me it is certainly a great view especially if you shrink thsi big version to about 50% in your browser

You must look back at your web cam days with a little grin?

Mike

Thanks very much Mike, yes the outer regions have a bit of noise. Next year I'll probably add to it, so that should take care of that
The star shapes near the edges are probably due to collimation issues, or maybe even an imperfect mirror. I haven't been able to get rid of it completely. I just don't know how good/bad my no-name mirror really is, but I have a new one on order so time will tell.
Yes, a broad smile more than a little grin for sure But still there's no doubt that all my tweaking and pushing the webcam to its limits has earned me valuable experience - I'm using much the same techniques when processing these new images.

Originally Posted by DavidU

You nailed that !

Thanks for looking David, glad you liked it

Originally Posted by gregbradley

Very very sharp and lots of resolution there.

An excellent image Rolf. Gee the standard is getting very high in this forum.

Greg.

Thanks for your kind words Greg I was quite satisfied with the resolution too.
I could have attached one of my earlier pathetic attempts with the webcam - but I'll spare you that!

Originally Posted by Stevec35

Nicely done Rolf. A very pleasing view. I think those hills to the west of Auckland must be a pretty reasonable site.

Cheers

Steve

Thank you Steve, yes it's a very good site I think. I live on the side of a hill and so would have liked a view of the other half of the sky too, but apart from that I'm very satisfied with the location.

Originally Posted by CoolhandJo

Nice colours and detail!

Thank you Paul, glad you liked it

Originally Posted by tilbrook@rbe.ne

Hi Rolf,

Beautiful colours in the nebula and stars, nice and sharp too!

Cheers,

Justin.

Thanks Justin I was surprised by how well the colours came out, given the comparatively short amount of RGB time.

Originally Posted by Paul Haese

I agree with Mike. Great colour saturation though.

Thanks Paul. I pushed the saturation quite a bit here but I think it worked ok.

Originally Posted by atalas

Love the colors!very nice high res work Sky.

Thank you Louie, I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Originally Posted by midnight

Very nice star colours Rolf and M20 is presented very nicely.

Darrin...

Thanks Darrin, I'm glad you noticed the star colours, it's something I always try to bring out in my images.

[allan gould]

Rolf, you really nailed that image. Lovely colour as already mentioned and you detail is excellent. I really like how you have processed this with keeping the stars under control and getting the most of the Nebulosity showing.
Really impressed.

[Ric]

That's a beauty Rolf

Lovely work.

[iceman (Mike)]

Stunning image, Rolf. I'm so glad I found this one as it was posted while I was away.

Beautiful colours, love the saturation!

It's now IOTW

[SkyViking (Rolf)]

Originally Posted by allan gould

Rolf, you really nailed that image. Lovely colour as already mentioned and you detail is excellent. I really like how you have processed this with keeping the stars under control and getting the most of the Nebulosity showing.
Really impressed.

Thank you very much Allan I'm quite happy with the way it came out, it's always a challenge to tease out the faint stuff while balancing other aspects of the image.

Originally Posted by Ric

That's a beauty Rolf

Lovely work.

Thank you Ric, I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Originally Posted by iceman

Stunning image, Rolf. I'm so glad I found this one as it was posted while I was away.

Beautiful colours, love the saturation!

It's now IOTW

Wow thanks very much Mike, that's awesome I'm glad you liked it. It's an honour to be on the front page of IIS

During processing I was actually wondering at times if I overdid the saturation on this one, it's definitely at the extreme end of what I normally do! But it seems to be about right given the positive feedback from quite a few people here regarding the colours, something for me to keep in mind. Thanks again everyone

[Gem (Grant)]

The more I look at this image, the more I like the colours of it. Well done!