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Lagoon Nebula M8 in Sagittarius

 

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Scope: Mak-Newt 152 mm  f/4.8, Location: Laguna Mountains, CA,   15 May 2010  Camera: ST8300M

Exposure:  10 x 5 min H-Alpha Exposure (1x1) 8 x 2.5 min RGB exposures (2x2).

Processing: Images were captured with CCDSoft. Aligned/stacked and dark subtracted in Astroart ; Sigma Combine method was used for stacking subs.  All channels were scaled and rough color balanced in Astroart.  Channels were co-registered in Astroart. The 5 minute H-Alpha block exposures were used for the main luminance construction with level adjustments and curves to bring out object features.   LRGB combine was done in Photoshop. G2V  factors  applied to color channels.  Background noise reduction was applied in PixInsight LE (SGBNR).   Sharpening was done on the luminance channel. Final touches and color balance in Photoshop. Final Image size is approximately 3352x2532 (resized to 3000x2250).

North is up in this image. The image was guided for all exposures. M8 is a nebular region about 5,200 light years form Earth. The young cluster of stars within the nebula just to the left of the bright central area is NGC 6530. There are several dark globules that can be seen in the image. These are collapsing proto-stellar clouds that my ultimately acquire enough density to ignite into stars. This image replaces an earlier image that can be seen in the Archives here.  Horizontal FOV is 83 arc minutes.

Image center is approximately - Equatorial 2000: RA: 18h 04m 11s Dec: -24°21'45" 

 

All images and content remain the property of Jim Thommes - copyright 2003 - 2012

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