M8 - Lagoon Nebula Neighborhood


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M8 - Lagoon Nebula Neighborhood: The Lagoon nebula is the second brightest star forming region visible from Durango (after the Orion nebula). The magenta color is from H-alpha emission (red) and a fraction of H-beta (cyan) emission. Also in the frame at the right of center is M20, the Trifid nebula. The Triffid nebula has both an emission component and a reflection component that shows up as sky blue. The globular cluster NGC 6544 is visible up and to the left of M8, and the open cluster M21 is visible up and to the right of M20.

Messier: 8
NGC: 6523
Right Ascension: 18h 3m 37s
Declination: -24° 23' 12"
Apparent Magnitude: 6.0

Date: July 2016
Equipment:
Telescope: Orion ED80T on Losmandy G-11 mount
Camera: Canon 50D DSLR, 1600 ISO RAW
Guiding: 80mm refractor/DSI Pro/PHD

Exposure:
Color: 10x1min
Darks: 11x1min

Processing Notes: The DSLR was not cooled. The RAW data were reduced and aligned and combined in DeepSkyStacker and saved as a TIFF. Image processing was done in Photoshop. Processing included stretching via curves, color blotch removal via a Carboni action, greatly increasing the saturation, adjusting the color balance (also via curves), and a slight Gaussian blur. Final image saved as jpeg.

Links to images of this object on other sites:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140924.html
http://www.narrowbandimaging.com/images/M8remixdbs_S2_Ha_O3.jpg

Additional Comments: I first imaged M8 with this setup during a Four Corners Stargazers star party at Andrews Lake on July 3rd, but was not set up for guiding. Since I thought the framing looked good, I re-imaged after setting up better polar alignment and guiding. More frames would have been taken, but M8 unfortunately moved behind a pole at the observatory, and I was not patient enough to wait for it to re-emarge.

A closeup of M8 on this site is found here: https://www.fortlewis.edu/observatory/image_detail.asp?ID=142
A closeup of M20 on this site is found here: https://www.fortlewis.edu/observatory/image_detail.asp?ID=215

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