The Eagle & the full moon

[Maurice]

Hello all,

The moral of this story is probably not to image when the moon is 99% full - even in Ha - although this one turned out ok because of good seeing.
Gradients were bad, but not as bad as the night before when the moon was about 10 degrees away from M16. One side of the image was black - the other side looked overexposed in the raw frames.

Attached is the full frame at full size of 7x1200sec exposures of the M16 region in Ha taken last night. Scope was a GSO RC14; camera a QHY9 all on an EQ8 + OAG with a ZWO120mm

The seeing varied from just under 1.5" FWHM to 1.8" FWHM in individual frames. Only processing here was calibration with darks & flats, non linear stretch, contrast enhancement and unsharp masking.

Unfortunately there is a fair bit of detail lost to compression in order to post here.

Cheers
Maurice

[Adriano]

Very nice image of M16.

[Atmos (Colin)]

Looks like a really detailed M16! I have even surprised by what can be done on even a full moon with a 3nm Ha filter.

[multiweb (Marc)]

That's an impressive Eagle Maurice. The details are outstanding. The only benefit from no moon would be added contrast. Still top shelf.

[Placidus (Mike and Trish)]

Most excellent image, and very nicely processed. Calls out for posting a link to a higher resolution version.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Very nice Ha Eagle Maurice....imaging under a full Moon huh?...Imager aaand Thrill Seeker

On clear nights around Full Moon I just sit at home and complain to anyone and everyone within earshot ...and drink beer

Mike

[TR (Terry)]

Looking very nice Maurice. I love the image scale.

Terry

[Stevec35 (Steve)]

That is pretty darn good! Just shows what you can get with good seeing.

Cheers

Steve

[Peter Ward]

Stars top left are a little eggy...but magnificent seeing has a habit of revealing such things, which are normally masked on lesser nights. (While I prey for such nights ....so far no answers from above )

Nice one

[Andy01 (Andy)]

Stunning Maurice, goes to show what can be done under challenging conditions with the full moon!
Personally, I'm agreeing with Mike now - if it's clear when the moons full, I just put my feet up and watch the olympics.
Lovely image

[Maurice]

Originally Posted by Adriano

Very nice image of M16.

Thank you Adriano

Originally Posted by multiweb

That's an impressive Eagle Maurice. The details are outstanding. The only benefit from no moon would be added contrast. Still top shelf.

Thanks Marc.. Agreed - no moon would certainly help with more contrast & reduce the need for extreme stretching of the data

Originally Posted by Placidus

Most excellent image, and very nicely processed. Calls out for posting a link to a higher resolution version.

Thanks for your kind words M&T..
I might have to join Astrobin or Flikr or something like that - against my better judgement..

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Very nice Ha Eagle Maurice....imaging under a full Moon huh?...Imager aaand Thrill Seeker

On clear nights around Full Moon I just sit at home and complain to anyone and everyone within earshot ...and drink beer

Mike

Thank you Mike..yeah I really like to live dangerously!
Same for me around full moon usually - but I'd probably swap the beer for bourbon...

Originally Posted by TR

Looking very nice Maurice. I love the image scale.

Terry

Thanks Terry

[Maurice]

Originally Posted by Atmos

Looks like a really detailed M16! I have even surprised by what can be done on even a full moon with a 3nm Ha filter.

Cheers Colin. I must admit that I'm surprised at the end result too.
Gradients were manageable on this night; the night before proved to be quite another story though.

Originally Posted by Stevec35

That is pretty darn good! Just shows what you can get with good seeing.

Cheers

Steve

That you Steve,. Yes, seeing sure makes all the difference.

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

Stars top left are a little eggy...but magnificent seeing has a habit of revealing such things, which are normally masked on lesser nights. (While I prey for such nights ....so far no answers from above )

Nice one

Thank you Peter.

I agree completely with what you've said about good seeing - I thought that everything was spot on in terms of collimation & focal plane squareness when the seeing was 2"... quite a different story when it nudges below 1.5" - every little error shows up.

I must say though that I've given up 'preying for such nights' for fear of stalking charges being layed...

Originally Posted by Andy01

Stunning Maurice, goes to show what can be done under challenging conditions with the full moon!
Personally, I'm agreeing with Mike now - if it's clear when the moons full, I just put my feet up and watch the olympics.
Lovely image

Thank you Andy....its generally bourbon for me...

[RickS (Rick)]

Great level of detail despite the heavy compression. Well done!

[Maurice]

Originally Posted by RickS

Great level of detail despite the heavy compression. Well done!

Thanks Rick..
I didn't realize that IIS also shrunk the physical size of my image.
Here's the 'pillars' at 100%

cheers
Maurice