
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable Isaiah 40:28
At the heart of M16 The Eagle Nebula lie a structure of interstellar gas and dust called the Pillars of Creation. First discovered by John Charles Duncan in 1920 at Mount Wilson Observatory using their 60 inch telescope. The structure is named so because the gas and dust are in the process of creating new stars, while also being eroded by the light from nearby stars that have recently formed. It was made famous by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995 when we got our first close up view of it.
My image was taken this last summer with my 60mm telescope. It’s about 3.5 hours of exposure time. At first you see a starless version so you can see all of the fine detail in the nebula.
Next summer I’d like to shoot this object again but with my longer focal length Schmidt Cassegrain telescope to pickup more detail in the core.
Image was stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, processed in Siril, denoised using GraxPert, and finishing touches and adjustments done in Photoshop.
Equipment used:
Telescope: Astro-Tech AT60ED + 1.0x field flattener (f6)
Mount: ZWO AM3
Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro
Autoguider: 30mm svbony scope + asi120mm mini
Filter: Optolong L-Extreme