M16, the Eagle Nebula

I recently processed this narrowband image of M16, the Eagle Nebula. M16 is a diffuse emission nebula in the constellation Serpens, in the Milky Way to our south in the summer months.

There is a cluster of stars at the center of the image. These stars are producing a solar wind, strong enough to blow the cloud of hydrogen and dust away from the cluster. Also in the image are finger like structures of dust and gas pointing towards the central star cluster. Embedded in these columns of gas and dust are newly formed stars. The gravitational pull from these stars resist the force of the solar wind thus forming these column/finger like structurers.

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaged these structures first on April 1, 1995 and again in 2014. The iconic images were named "The Pillars of Creation". (NASA Science)

<a href="https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-messier-catalog/messier-16/" rel="noreferrer nofollow">science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night...</a>

This image is different from my previous images in that it is a narrowband image. Ionized gases in this nebula produce three prominent emissions: Hydrogen Alpha (656.3 nm), Sulfur II (672 nm) and Oxygen III (500.7 nm). I used the Hubble Palette to map these emissions to RGB image channels. These are as follows:

Red: Sulfur II (672 nm)

Green: Hydrogen Alpha (656.3 nm)

Blue: Oxygen III (500.7 nm)

Bottom line, this mapping communicates the composition of different regions in the nebula. It does not represent the way the nebula appears to our eyes.

Image processed by Andrew Macica, original data from Telescope Live.

Imaging Details:

Observatory: Rio Hurtado Valley, Chile

Telescope: Planewave CDK24

Aperture: 610 mm (24 inches), f/6.5

Focal Length: 3962 mm

Camera: QHY 600M Pro CMOS

Filters: SII, Ha, OIII (SHO)

Total Exposure: 12 hours 10 min.

Image Processing:

PixInsight 1.8.9-3 Ripley (x64);

BlurXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, StarXTerminator (RC Astro);

Python 3.9;

Adobe Photoshop 25.12.1;

Adobe Lightroom Classic 14.2

Instruction on PixInsight from Adam Block Studios.