M16 Eagle Nebula

[lazjen (Chris)]

I took a number of 30 sec (ISO1800) and 60 sec (ISO800) exposures (plus darks) on Friday night (usual streetlight bathed backyard location). For the first part of the night, the wind was terrible, so I reduced the risk by going for 30 sec. By around 10:30 pm the wind had dropped enough I started risking 60 sec shots. I kept going until I couldn't see the nebula any more.

Stacked in DSS - the result had a much "thinner" luminance/RGB curve than I expected. I'm hoping if I get more data another night that this might fatten up a bit.

My first attempt of post-DSS processing was in StarTools - but a mix of not knowing what I was really doing plus a slow machine causing delayed feedback meant that I didn't get too far - although even with my flailing around, I could see potential.

In the end, this image was cleaned up in PS (not my best effort). Again, I had to use a 16 bit tiff - I couldn't get a previous tip to use the 32 bit version to work at all.

Details:
GSO RC10
Canon EOS 6D
0.67 FR
Mix of 30 and 60 sec exposures

Anyway, comments, tips, etc, appreciated.

[carlstronomy (Carl)]

Nice, keep them coming some really nice data there a good image.

Carl

[Larryp (Laurie)]

Good one!

[naskies (Dave)]

Looking good, Chris. The pillars are nicely defined. Was this with your new OAG?

The stacked result in DSS is always "thin" because it's linear data - you need to stretch the data to fatten up the histogram, and then use the curves/saturation to get the right contrast.

[lazjen (Chris)]

Yes, using the OAG setup for this and the M20 I posted a while back. It works reasonably well, however I can see a few things I'd like to change with it. The OAG prism/holder puts a shadow onto the image frame, so I lose a portion of the image. What I would prefer to do is get a larger OAG to match the moonlite focuser width (68mm, from memory) instead of the current 48mm. I'd have the OAG prism stick into that portion and not shadow the image frame. Doing that though would cause issues with the focus distance for the OAG as it would be closer to the focuser than the camera. Anyway, plenty of other things to learn/solve/fix for now, so I'll leave that one for another day.

As for DSS, I understand what you mean - I was comparing "like" for "like" though. My M20 data had an initial fatter histogram than the initial histogram for this one. In fact, for most of my stacking attempts on various data, it's been more like the M20 results - fatter initial histogram.