The Omega Nebula, also known as the Swan Nebula (catalogued as Messier 17 or M17) is an H II region in the constellation Sagittarius. It was discovered by Philippe Loys de Chéseaux in 1745. Charles Messier catalogued it in 1764. It is located in the rich starfields of the Sagittarius area of the Milky Way.

The Omega Nebula is between 5,000 and 6,000 light-years from Earth and it spans some 15 light-years in diameter. The cloud of interstellar matter of which this nebula is a part is roughly 40 light-years in diameter and has a mass of 30,000 solar masses. The total mass of the Omega Nebula is an estimated 800 solar masses.

It is considered one of the brightest and most massive star-forming regions of our galaxy. Its local geometry is similar to the Orion Nebula except that it is viewed edge-on rather than face-on.

The open cluster NGC 6618 lies embedded in the nebulosity and causes the gases of the nebula to shine due to radiation from these hot, young stars; however, the actual number of stars in the nebula is much higher - up to 800, plus over a thousand stars in formation on its outer regions. It is also one of the youngest clusters known, with an age of just 1 million years. The Swan portion of M17, is said to resemble a barber’s pole.

[Source: Wikipedia]

The image was captured with the Celestron CGE Pro mount and the venerable Meade 12"LX200 SCT, using my Atik 383L+ mono at F7.16 (i.e. 2182mm FL). Astronomik's Ha narrow band and Red, Green and Blue broad band filters were used. Imaging subs were taken at 1x1 bin, -10C, and 10 minutes each for Ha, and 5 minutes for the R, G and B subs.

Image information -- 2017

Image --

Ha 600s: 43 subs (7.17 hr) on Sep 13th, Sep 14th, Sep 15th and Sep 16th.

Red 300s: 12 subs (1.00 hr) on Sep 17th and Sep 18th.

Green300s: 10 subs (0.83 hr) on Sep 18th.

Blue 300s: 9 subs (0.75 hr) on Sep 18th.

Processing was done with PixInsight, following (for the most part) kayronjm's tutorial of Feb. 24th. However, Ha was used to develop the Luminance image. R, G and B were collected for the color mix. I had previously done this target in LRGB back in Aug 2015. Orientation is different on this one, and there's a bit of cropping of the image. However, the detail and color came out nicely.

North is to the right (I think, or left????), and this is a slight crop due to the misalignment accumulation from so many different filters and times.