Digital Image: The Eagle Nebula

Here is the famous Eagle Nebula (M16) in the constellation of Serpens. This emission nebula is also known as the “Star Queen Nebula”. The inset circle shows the well-known “Pillars of Creation”, made famous by the Hubble Space Telescope.The nebula contains several active star-forming gas and dust regions, including the aforementioned Pillars of Creation. The Eagle Nebula lies in the Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way.

This is an HOS image, meaning the Hydrogen Alpha channel was mapped to Red, the Oxygen III channel was mapped to Green, and the Sulphur II channel was mapped to blue.

Click the image for a larger version you can explore.

Image Info

  • Imaged from the KPO field in Saint Cloud, Florida (Ha), and from Key West, Florida (OIII & SII).
  • Camera : ZWO ASI1600MM Pro
  • Lens: Canon 100-400 f/5.6L lens, set to 386mm
  • Mount: iOptron SmartEQ Pro
  • Hydrogen Alpha: 12 subframes of 300s = 60 min integration, assigned to Red
  • Oxygen III: 5 subframes of 300s = 25 min integration, assigned to Green
  • Sulphur II: 12 subframes of 300s = 60 min integration, assigned to Blue
  • Total integration time: 145 min = 2.42 hours.
  • Captured via ASIAir Pro automation
  • Optical tracking via ASIAir automation, currently using ST4 mount control via the ASI120MM-S guide camera
  • Separate channels stacked and HOS integrated in Astro Pixel Processor
  • Image cropped, stretched, and noise processed in Nebulosity
  • Final processing in Aperture

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