Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Serpens (Ser)  ·  Contains:  Eagle Nebula  ·  HD168075  ·  HD168076  ·  HD168137  ·  IC 4703  ·  LBN 67  ·  M 16  ·  NGC 6611  ·  Star Queen  ·  Star Queen nebula
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M16: Cosmic Erosion in Progress!, Alex Woronow
M16: Cosmic Erosion in Progress!, Alex Woronow

M16: Cosmic Erosion in Progress!

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M16: Cosmic Erosion in Progress!, Alex Woronow
M16: Cosmic Erosion in Progress!, Alex Woronow

M16: Cosmic Erosion in Progress!

Equipment

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Acquisition details

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Description

16: Cosmic Erosion in Progress!

OTA:……………….PlaneWave 17” f/6.8
Camera:………….FLI ML16803
Observatory:…. Deep Sky West, Chile

EXPOSURES:                
…H: 23 x 1800        
…S. 10 x 1800        
…O: 14 x 1800        
Total exposure    23.5 hours

Image Width: 43.3 (full-frame)  18 (Zoomed frame) arc-minutes
Processed by Alex Woronow (2022) using SWT, PixInsight, NbAssist, Topaz, Photolemur, Aurora, 3DLut

Image A, the one you saw when you entered this page is A zoomed portion of the full image shown in Image B. Both images have textures and details portraying the violence of star formation near the centers of the frames. Nodules, Thackery, or Bok, as your preference dictates. Indicate the erosion of dark clouds in the foreground. To the left of the blue area, the dark nebula becomes ragged, as it too slowly succumbs to the erosion. Beautiful stuff, this!

This image is a true-color rendition from the narrowband captures—not a Hubble Palette!!! StarNet2, in Pixinsight, did an excellent job of removing the stars. The complex color mapping started with a script I wrote. Most of the details enhancement took place in Topaz, and the dynamic range and color range came from work with Photolemu and Aurora HDR. 3DLut made some of the final color adjustments. The stars were replaced using a PixelMath tool. The total time to process was about 3hrs.

The color-mapping script I used (Narrowband Assistant) is available, free of charge, by contacting me in a private email.

Comments are always welcomed,
Alex

Comments

Revisions

  • Final
    M16: Cosmic Erosion in Progress!, Alex Woronow
    Original
  • M16: Cosmic Erosion in Progress!, Alex Woronow
    B
  • M16: Cosmic Erosion in Progress!, Alex Woronow
    C

B

Title: Full Frame M16 at about 1/2 resolution of source frame

Uploaded: ...

C

Title: AI resampled for better detail clarity

Description: I took Image B, which was a full-resolution portion of Image A, and told Topaz Gigapixel to make it a 20" wide image at 300 pxl / inch. Then to Gigapixel to downsample that image back to the original 1700 pixels wide. This is what I got. It certainly looks cleaner when zoomed in, but, of course, who knows what might have been sacrificed? But if I wanted to print an image for my wall, this is the one I'd use.

Uploaded: ...

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

M16: Cosmic Erosion in Progress!, Alex Woronow