Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Sagittarius (Sgr)  ·  Contains:  Lagoon Nebula  ·  M 8  ·  NGC 6523  ·  NGC 6526  ·  NGC 6530  ·  The star 7 Sgr  ·  The star 9 Sgr
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The Lagoon Nebula, Jeff Marston
The Lagoon Nebula
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The Lagoon Nebula

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
The Lagoon Nebula, Jeff Marston
The Lagoon Nebula
Powered byPixInsight

The Lagoon Nebula

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Description

My two imaging buddies and I were at a dark site we don’t often visit. It is in the Uinta Mountains east of Park City, Utah. It’s a Bortle 2 and is between 9500 and 10000 feet. The sky was absolutely stunning. The Milky Way was bright and went from horizon to horizon.

I was having some technical issues with plate solving so I gave up on going to dim objects and tried the Lagoon Nebula for the first time. It might have been 25 degrees above the horizon, but it was showing up on my computer so I could manually center it. I only got 24, four minute exposures because I wasn’t staying overnight. It seemed to work out well enough. I had no preconceived ideas about what the Lagoon Nebula even looks like because I usually don’t go for large nebulae, but this one seemed to work out okay.

It is interesting how different stacking programs can be. When I stacked in Affinity I got a lot of reds, browns, and surrounding nebulosity. With I stacked with Astropixelprocessor I got more intense stars with and a more intense nebula toward the center. It’s fun to play with the post processing. It’s also hard to not overdo it.

Comments

Revisions

  • The Lagoon Nebula, Jeff Marston
    Original
  • The Lagoon Nebula, Jeff Marston
    B
  • The Lagoon Nebula, Jeff Marston
    E
  • The Lagoon Nebula, Jeff Marston
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  • Final
    The Lagoon Nebula, Jeff Marston
    G

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The Lagoon Nebula, Jeff Marston