Messier 16 Eagle Nebula

[AstroTom]

Hi All,

I thought I would post my attempt at the Eagle nebula from this last weekend. Annoyingly I was limited to around 1.5 hours of exposure as the cloud rolled in. The two images are the same image but one is cropped a little more. To be honest I'm trying to work out which I prefer.

Anyway the image is composed of the following:

21 x 4 minute lights
10 x 4 minute darks
15 x flats
15 x bias

All stacked in deep sky stacker. The equipment used was:

Skywatcher ED120 Black Diamond
AZEQ6 mount
ST80 guidescope
Skywatcher synguider
Canon EOS 550D

Anyway happy for any comments or feedback that could improve the images.

Regards,

Tom

[rustigsmed]

hi tom,

i think you forgot the image!!

Looking forward to seeing it!

Russ

edit, nope its there now!
not a bad effort. perhaps stretched a bit far for the amount of data (the fainter bits are quite faint so become noisey). but great start!

is the 550d unmodified?

Russ

[AstroTom]

For some reason I could add the second image so here it is.

Tom

[AstroTom]

Thanks Russ, yea I was thinking the more cropped one did look a little noisy. That's why to some extent the more zoomed out version is better. It doesn't enhance that noise as much. I was hoping to get at least 2.5 hours on this nebula but the clouds ruined the night.

The 550d was unmodified. I have a modified 600d but I find a lot of the nebulas are just too red. I wanted to try and capture some of the different colours in this nebula rather than having a washed out red nebula.

Tom

[Cimitar]

Hi Tom, that's a great shot! I particularly like the detail you've achieved on the 3rd smaller pillar to the right and the isolated dark globules. I wish my first attempt at the Eagle had come out like that :thumbsup:

I also use a DSLR for my imaging, (Canon 600D, un-modified) and initially I was a bit dis-heartened with my results. After researching more on processing, I realised that my images often contained a lot of hidden data that didn't appear on the first pass. I hope you don't mind but I took the liberty of saving your 1st image and ran a quick process on it to see what may be lurking beneath (see attached). You have quite a bit of extra detail hidden in your image, which means your sub-lengths are on track :thumbsup:

Very impressive, looking forward to seeing more :)

Cheers, Evan

[AstroTom]

Hi Evan,

Thanks for your comments. That's great you got more detail out of the image. The image looks amazing. Out of interest how did you manage to get the fainter details out? I'm thinking of trying to replicate your processing. I'm not the best at the processing unfortunately. Did you do the processing in photoshop or Lightroom?

Regards,
Tom

[Cimitar]

Hi Tom, thanks - got your PM :thumbsup: . I'm just about to head out the door but sure thing, happy to help. I'll put some thoughts down and respond tomorrow and we can go from there :)

Yep - I ran the processing in Photoshop, however there's also some other stuff going on which we can talk about.

Cheers, Evan

[AstroTom]

Hi Evan,

Thanks for getting back to me. It would be good to learn more about your processing.

Regards,

Tom

[AstroTom]

Spent a little more time last night and tweaked a few things and my latest result is shown below. Pretty happy with this, especially the detail around the pillars.

[Cimitar]

Hi Tom, just sent the PM. Let me know if you don't receive it. Your reprocessed image looks great, that faint nebulosity is starting to appear. Much of the image gradient has also disappeared. Very nice! :thumbsup:

Cheers, Evan

[AstroTom]

Hi Evan, yep got the PM. Thankyou very much for the advice you gave. I will give some of your tips ago, probably over the weekend.

I was pretty happy with the reprocessed image below, but I think applying some of the processing steps from the photoshop add ins will improve it again.

Thanks for your help.

Regards,

Tom