It's all coming together - M8 in Springtime...
Hello everyone!!
On the back of the clear skies last night here in Brisbane, I was able to get a good shot at M8, The Lagoon Nebula. This was also the first time that I've been able to have all the components in my imaging train hooked up. This means that I had my MPCC attached to my QHY8L along with the UHC-S filter.
I managed to get 35, 3 minute exposures but 2 of them were bad so I was left with 1 hour and 39 minutes worth of exposure. Guiding was done using PHD, although some of the stars ended up egg shaped. However, with some nifty little computer routines these eggs are now round! Dark, flats and dark flats were taken and the resultant image is attached to this post.
Now before I began processing my data, I wanted to read up on just what makes M8 tick - what stars are providing the light, etc. Once I had an understanding of this I tried to keep everything in relative harmony... I don't know where those two words came from but I like the phrase!!
Anyway here is my interpretation of M8, The Lagoon Nebula...
Cheers,
Mario
PS Critiques very welcome...
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