The Eagle Nebula, M16

To see the faint detail in this image, adjust your monitor's brightness and contrast to clearly show all 17 steps in this grayscale chart:

This image has much detail that can be seen in these higher-resolution versions:

M16, 2808 by 1962 pixels (432kB)

M16, 1600 by 1118 pixels (252kB)

M16, 1200 by 838 pixels (199kB)

Imaging Equipment:

• Telescope: Celestron C11 at f/6.5
• Zeiss II German Equatorial Mount
• Santa Barbara Instrument Group ST-8E NABG CCD camera (1530 x 1020 pixels, 9 x 9mm, monochromatic, 16 bit, 13.8 x 9.2mm array)
• CWF8 color filter wheel with IR-blocking clear, red, green, blue and narrow-band (3nm) Ha dichroic filters

Exposure & Processing Information

• Date: July 12 and 13, 2002
• Location: Mt. Pinos, CA
• Elevation: 8300', OAT +51F
• Composition: Monochromatic image shot in the light of the Hydrogen Alpha fluorescence line (at 656.5nm) using a Custom Scientific 3nm bandwidth Hydrogen Alpha filter. Shooting emission nebulae through narrow band-band Ha filters yields high-contrast images and significantly reduces the brightness and size of nearby stars.
• 18 exposures of 10 minutes each. Total exposure time: 3 hours
• Plate scale: 1.02 arc-sec/pixel
• Image processing software: MaxIm DL, RegiStar, AIP4WIN, Photoshop
• Image processing included 50 iterations of Richardson-Lucy deconvolution applied to the high frequency spatial components of the image.

About the Eagle Nebula

M16 is a bright open star cluster with emission nebulosity. This sixth magnitude object is located in the Summer Milky Way in the constellation Serpens. The Eagle Nebula (AKA the Star Queen Nebula) is about 8000 light years from our location. The unusual structures within the nebula make this a popular visual and photographic target for amateur astronomers in the summer months. It lies within a few degrees of several popular deep sky objects including the Lagoon Nebula (M8), the Trifid Nebula (M20), the Omega Nebula (M17), and several globular and open star clusters including M21, M22, M23, M24, M25, and M28. Also nearby are the faint, but photographically beautiful, emission/reflection nebula complexes NGC6559 and NGC6590. (Don't miss these beauties!)

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