Eagle Nebula ??

[acarleton]

I directed my telescope towards the Eagle Nebula (Messier 16) and shot the attached picture. When i look at it against any other Eagle nebula shot it looks completely different ... is this M16? or have i shot something else? if so, what is it?

picture details

22 images stacked in DSS
ISO 800
100 seconds each (to get shots in between the gusts of wind)
Canon 600D
10" newt
NEQ6

[raymo]

That's M8, The Lagoon Nebula Aidan. Quite nice. It's not very noisy; you'd have got much more detail
using 1600.
raymo

[acarleton]

aaahhh, thanks for that, makes sense. i was way off

[LightningNZ]

hehe, nice shot of the Lagoon. Like Raymo said, it's a good pic.

[acarleton]

i added some more data, any better ?

[raymo]

Nice. More detail, but could do with a bit more colour saturation in
my opinion.
raymo

[multiweb]

Don't be disappointed. M8 is the real deal. M16 is overrated. Should be demoted. Like pluto.

[acarleton]

Haha, not disappointed with the nebula, just my poor knowledge of the Galaxy :)

[acarleton]

alright, one last try with the data

[raymo]

THAT'S more like it.
raymo

[LightningNZ]

The colour is pushed to the max in this one, but it's pretty darn good all the same. Same story I give to everyone starting out - make sure you don't make the background completely black, when you do you lose information from the picture and it starts to look unreal.

[acarleton]

How is this ? it is difficult to get it perfect because i don't have that much data and i was shooting under horrible LP.

[LightningNZ]

There we go - nice and natural looking.

[PeterEde]

Nice
It's interesting to see everyones take on the colours.
Since we can't really see what it's like with out eyes. It comes down to how we process. What you think looks great is not necessarily to others taste.

[Rex]

Beautiful shot there Aidan. I really like the final one.
I think you could improve it with some flat frames. They are really easy to take and they make your images really pop. Like everyone, when I first started out I never used to take them, but once I bit the bullet, I will never not take them again because the difference they make is remarkable.
Like Peter said personal choice does come into your processing, however my take on it goes something like this, I try to make the peaks of each colour channel line up with each other, which apparently give close to the colour as we would see it in person, and make sure the background is dark grey, (not black), and there is no inherent colour cast across the background. Once again there are a multitude of ways to process and this is just my way. Sorry to ramble, just thought I would add my two cents worth.

[PeterEde]

Still not taking flats either. Hmmm