Radius 70×55 ly (cluster 15 ly) Absolute magnitude (V) -8.21 Notable features 5.5 million years old
The Eagle Nebula is both an open star cluster and a large bright area of emission nebulosity. It is located in the south east corner of Serpens Cauda, close to the Scutum boundary. Within M16 are several complex star forming regions, the most noteworthy of which is variously referred to as the "Star Queen and her Throne" or the "Towering Pillars" (made famous by the HST image) and often referred to as the Pillars of Creation. Towards the centre in this photograph, it is a giant structure more than 6 light years from end to end. Another giant star forming region is the "elephant trunk" structure to the north east. M16 is about 7,000 light years distant and was probably first observed by the Swiss astronomer P.L. de Cheseaux in 1746. It was catalogued by Charles Messier in June 1764, who was also the first person to note the nebulosity surrounding the star cluster.
Not bad mate.. are those odd shaped stars a result of the wind or collimation? You've got a lot of nebulosity, the detail is not as sharp as I was expecting to see, however the conditions you described are most likely to blame here..
Good going on getting some imaging in anyway.. clouds abound at my location!
Alex I tried using a Cheshire for the first time maybe I've messed the collimation up a bit but it was quite windy I did dump a few subs because they were fuzzie and tracking was off. CALM were doing regular back burning too so there was some smoke haze about. When I was using DSLR Focus the results on the same star were all over the place.
Attached is a the best of the lot 8 Minute frame adjusted CS3 no darks or flats applied
