Tonight I was able to proof that the “Lagoon nebula” M8 was still there ~4100 years ago – wow! With a teapot, a sunlounger (probably better a starlounger) and the right music the night passed quickly 🙂
The total exposure time was ~1h36m. The seeing conditions were around 2.2″. It was a clear night without wind. I used my 8″ GSO newton telescope with an Atik383L+ camera (see here). And again I am amazed which image quality is possible with this equipment on this dark sky within this short exposure time. Below is just the luminance part of the image which shows some sharp details of the nebula.
For post-processing I used the free software DeepSkyStacker and GIMP. The full resolution images is available here.
Clear skies!
 | Date | 2017/07/20 |
 | Location | La Palma / Spain |
 | Object | Lagoon nebula - Messier 8 |
 | Camera | Atik383L+ |
 | Guiding | yes, QHY5-II Mono via OAG |
 | Telescope | 8" GSO Newtonian |
 | Barlow lens | none |
 | Mount | EQ6Syntrek |
 | Cooling | -10°C |
 | Luminance | 6x 600s, bin: 1x1 |
 | Red | 6x 150s, bin: 2x2 |
 | Green | 6x 150s, bin: 2x2 |
 | Blue | 6x 150s, bin: 2x2 |
 | Dark | 2x |
 | Flat | 10x |
 | Total exposure | ~1h36m |
