M16 and Pillars of Creation (Rob Walker)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Serpens (Ser) · Contains: Eagle Nebula · HD167811 · HD167859 · HD167899 · HD168016 · HD168046 · HD168047 · HD168048 · HD168075 · HD168076 · HD168077 · HD168097 · HD168136 · HD168137 · HD168183 · HD168207 · IC 4703 · LBN 67 · LBN 68 · M 16 · NGC 6611 · Sh2-49 · Star Queen · Star Queen nebula

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M16 and Pillars of Creation

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M16 and Pillars of Creation

Like many, I was inspired by the JWT image - and the efforts of others to capture on their own rigs. But I didn't realise what a beast it was going to be from my yard.

The 1st problem: at my location, it's maximum elevation is just 25 degrees, which occured only just at nautical dark and right around the meridian flip.
The 2nd problem: the only place I can catch a brief window to image from S to SW is on a wooden deck at the back of my yard. The deck is not fully stable, so my PA "wobbles" as the scope slews. As a result of the long FL, poor PA, and unsteady platform I had to keep my subs short - which is less than ideal for the very faint Sii.
The 3rd problem: the gap I get to image through not only suffers atmospheric dispersion due to the low angle but is also directly into a street light
The 4th problem: due to houses and other obstructions, I'd get at best around 1.5hours imaging time

So against all these why bother?

Well, I'm stubborn I guess and I really wanted to capture an image of this to call my own. The data was poor - noisy and way too little of it. And the processing took a lot of effort to extract what was there and try and preserve some detail through the noise. But ultimately, the image was better than expected. I did consider adding more nights - but the clouds haven't let up and, honestly, with such an unstable viewing deck I'm not sure it'll add much since the stacks are likely to be very blurry (as these were)

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	8156575
PixInsight job	8JN7NXMNMOBCAZYX5UBJYGGTZ1JJIMWG
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	18h18m40s.911
RA (top/left)	18h19m07s.826
RA (top/right)	18h16m40s.130
RA (bottom/right)	18h18m13s.657
RA (bottom/left)	18h20m41s.255

Dec (center)	-13°54′13″.28
Dec (top/left)	-13°25′11″.51
Dec (top/right)	-13°59′09″.57
Dec (bottom/right)	-14°23′14″.79
Dec (bottom/left)	-13°49′12″.16

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M16 and Pillars of Creation

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