An Early Season Trifid - M20

[Dave882]

It's early in the season for these Saggitarian beauties but some clear moonless nights earlier this month had me looking for a bright target pre-dawn.

There's a good reason why m20 (The Trifid Nebula) is such a popular target. With a mixture of Halpha, reflection and dark nebulous regions there's so much to look at. At longer focal lengths there's some really intriguing detail in the dusty strands, knots and swirls in the reflective regions and stellar jets, apparently caused by expelled gas and radiation caused by star formation.

Needed to do a 2-panel mosaic to fit her (damn c14s tiny fov) but ASIAIR plan mode made light work of this and APP stitching and mosaic tool is just so easy to use. I combined some data from 2022 as well and ended up with a total of just over 15hrs in total in 60sec subs.

Always tricky shooting broadband from my B7 location but this brighter targets are certainly a lot easier. Quite happy with the result but certainly always room for improvement so would love to hear your thoughts too!

Stacking and LP removal in APP, processing in PI.

Larger & More Detailed Version Here (https://storage.googleapis.com/dso-browser.com/astrophotography/picture-1337dbf5af3c812a9a2a4aee4fb6a7ee-original.jpg)

C14 non edge @f7 with the Starizona reducer LF
EQ8 pro
Asi2600mc pro gain-100 (No Filter)
Asi220mm / celestron OAG
ZWO EAF
ASIAIR pro / APP / PI

And thanks for having a look!

[kosborn]

Great image, particularly at that focal length. Do you have a subscription on Astrobin? I think that's worth an Image of the Day!

The Trifid has it all with emission, reflection and dark nebulae. Je suis à trois!

Kevin

[Startrek]

Dave,
That’s a cracker of a Trifid , exposing so much detail across the whole gamut of nebulosity
Perfectly framed and colour is excellent ( maybe the blue reflection nebulosity could have been a tad brighter , lighter blue ??? OMI )
It’s a definite keeper
Well done !!

Martin

[gb44]

Dave, wow, thats the best one Ive ever seen. No filters either!

GlennB

[alpal]

Hi David,
that's a top image - well done.
I can even see the 2 jets.
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-messier-catalog/messier-20/

cheers
Allan

[Davidpmcadam]

David, great image.

[Peter Ward]

OK I admit I have a soft-spot for well executed narrow field images.

But this is an exceptionally fine example of M20. Well done :thumbsup:

[Bodon]

Far out, really nice!

[Dave882]

Thanks guys I appreciate the kind comments. It’s a fascinating area to image and if you go a bit wider there’s tonnes of background Ha snaking around too.
Kevin- Im glad you liked it! It’s one of those targets that rewards the longer fl and higher res images. I’m not on Astrobin, but I use Telescopius to host full-size images which is also free.
Martin- I really appreciate your input and I kind of agree with you too regarding the colour. Although for this I just ran it through SPCC in PI and let it gave me the corrected colour and I just added saturation. Perhaps I went a bit OTT in that dept lol.
Allan- yes I love those jets. My daughter calls it the snail nebula!
Glenn- cheers mate and yes no filters here but for such a bright target it shines through the b7 muck. It’s just the gradients around it that are tricky to deal with.
Thanks David!
Cheers Peter I’m glad you liked it!

[Dave882]

Thanks Steve!

[strongmanmike]

That's a mighty fine looking Trifid you have captured Dave, plenty of nice detail and perfect colour, great subtle processing, beautiful...have a GOLD star :thumbsup:

Mike

[Retrograde]

A great Trifid Dave. Those spikes really stand out!

[Dave882]

Thanks Mike much appreciated! A gold star from the strongman…just made my day!!

[Dave882]

Thanks Pete yeah I really love that bit too. Depending on the framing it almost looks like a cosmic snail trying to climb a dark tree lol

[strongmanmike]

:lol: no worries happy I made you happy :) it's a purler of a Trifid :thumbsup:.

You might be interested, I wrote an article for the old Sky & Space magazine, which was proofed by David Malin for validity (he made no substantial changes :D) way back in 07, that was about the colours of the trifid, it's HERE (https://pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/163616284/original)

The print reproduction for that mag was notoriously crap, my original image used for the article is HERE (https://pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/82479275/original) (taken in poor seeing and windy conditions :()

While our colours match well and regardless of my poor conditions, your latest result is light years ahead of my 07 result! :lol: :thumbsup:

Tope job again mate

Mike

[atalas]

Fabulous David :thumbsup:

[MortonH]

Great image.

[Dave882]

Mike you are a true national treasure! Using those new-fangled digital chips and all. Lol I feel very fortunate to be imaging in this modern tech age! And wow by the way that article is actually really cool. I never knew you were such a wordsmith!! :lol:
Thanks again for your encouragement and kind words

[Dave882]

Thanks mate much appreciated

[Dave882]

Cheers Morton I’m glad you liked it!

[gregbradley]

Oh yeah, that's terrific!

Greg.

[Dave882]

Thanks mate much appreciated!