Eagle Nebula

[ChrisM]

The Eagle Nebula has been on my list all year and I got a reasonably dark sky (Bortle 4) over two nights last week here in Gippsland.

Seeing was not brilliant - typically 3 - 4 arcseconds but with some short periods below 3 or above 4.

Being an occasional user, I'm still discovering features in PixInsight and it was after I processed this image that I found something that would use criteria to select certain subframes. Based on that late analysis, I should have tossed out about 20-25% of what has been integrated into this image - oh well........

This is the first time that I've tried the Generalised Hyperbolic Stretch. It seems like a tool that I should practise a lot more.

The second shot is a crop of the first.

Nikon D750 on a Meade 14" SCT FL = 3556 mm
197 x 1 min (no guiding)
Processed in PixInsight

Cheers, Chris

[Dave882]

Some seriously incredible detail revealed in those pillars. GHS is a fantastic tool and I reckon with some more practice you’ll be able to reveal some more detail in those darker regions. Great work well done!

[ChrisM]

Thanks very much Dave - I really appreciate your comments. And I will definitely experiment with GHS a lot more. I might even re-process this one after culling quite a few of the subs. And I think I blew out some of the brighter stars so might try a lower ISO given that the Nikon D750 is supposed to be ISO-invariant.
Cheers, Chris