The breathtaking images of the Pillars of Creation have always captivated anyone remotely interested in space. Back in the day, we relied solely on Hubble images to peer into the depths of the universe. But with the advancement of modern technology and remarkable optics, we now have the opportunity to explore the deep skies using relatively cheap (NOT!!!) equipment and produce images that were once beyond imagination.

Naturally, I too yearned to capture the magnificence of the Pillars.

One night, I decided, "Let's go get me an Eagle."On the first night, the sky was beautifully clear, and my session seemed flawless - or so I thought. It turned out that my  (EAF) was acting up, probably drunk, and missing the focus point entirely. An entire night's efforts went down the drain.
Peekaboo:

For the next 5 nights the sky would be clear, until I setup and start, then the clouds would set in.
I swear if I was playing Peekaboo with the clouds i would have gotten more clear shots.

Anyway.... out of about 500 images, I manually selected the best 225 images and stacked them.

Right out of the stack the image looks great and you can see the pillars and the nebula surrounding.

The Stubborn Eagle:

My usual approach involves two stacks: one with standard settings and another with 2x Drizzle.

I worked on the normal image, and the result can be seen in the Original revision of the image, It took me some time to get the colors where I wanted them but I think this looks pretty good for a dual band OSC image.

However, the drizzled dataset had a mind of its own and resisted my efforts to produce the desired SHO color palette. Countless nights were spent processing and iterating (63 times!) until I finally arrived at this final image.

And Yes, it may be a bit magenta, but that's something you'll have to take up with the Eagle!


Tiny but Mighty:

I'm truly amazed by the impressive performance of both the Uncooled ASI585MC camera and the Askar fra400 telescope. When I embarked on this project, I never expected to achieve such remarkable results.

Kudos to ASKAR and ZWO.

Clear Skies!