Messier 20 - Trifid Nebula (OortCloud)

Messier 20 - Trifid Nebula

The Trifid Nebula (Messier 20, NGC 6514) is a favorite of amateur astronomers, and for good reason. It is quite conspicuous, due to its high surface brightness, and contains emission nebula, reflection nebula, dark nebula, and an open cluster, all-in-one. Situated roughly 5,200ly away in the Scutum section of the Scutum-Centaurus arm of the Milky Way, near the galactic center, between the constellations Ophiuchus and Sagittarius. Also included in this image is the open cluster Messier 21 (NGC 6531) to the northwest. The name Trifid refers to the 3 apparent lobes of the emission nebula, divided by the lanes of the dark nebula. It is one of the youngest known H-II star-forming regions in the Milky Way.

Equipment:

-William Optics Zenithstar 73mm FPL-53 doublet APO refractor.

-William Optics Flat73r focal reducer/field flattener.

-SkyWatcher EQ6R-Pro equatorial mount.

-ZWO ASI533MC-Pro color camera with ZWO luminance filter.

-William Optics Uniguide 32mm guide scope.

-ZWO ASI462MC color camera with Antlia 685nm IR-pass filter.

-ZWO ASIair Pro.

-ZWO Electronic Auto Focus.

Pre-processing/Calibration performed in DeepSkyStacker:

-60 120-second lights (gain 0), calibrated with temperature matched darks, flats, and bias frames (60 each at minus 10 degrees Celsius).

-Debayered with Auto Homogeneity Directed interpolation.

-Stacked with Auto Adaptive Weighted Average algorithm.

-2x Drizzle.

-Export to 3-plane FITS.

Post-processing performed in Siril:

-Crop.

-Background Extraction.

-Photometric Color Calibration.

-Arcsinh Transformation.

-Histogram Transformation.

-Export to TIFF.

Final image adjustments performed in GIMP:

-Histogram adjustment (Levels).

-Fine tune colors (Curves).

-Export to PNG.

Shot from my light polluted back yard (Bortle 6-7) under a 33% illuminated waxing crescent Moon.

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