Messier 16 - The Eagle Nebula/The Pillars of Creation, 4.75 hours in SHO (A Narrowband Test of the SCA260 Scope)

Hi Folks,

 

We recently had three clear nights, and on the third night, I decided to do a test of the new Sharpstar SCA260 V2 scope with narrowband. I had done some LRGB work with it so far, but nothing in Narrowband.

 

So I chose Messier 16 - the Eagle Nebula/Pillars of Creation, and did 4.75 hours of SHO.

 

The processing turned out to be a challenge.

 

Since using the latest version of StarXterminator, I have shifted to a starless workflow and have loved working in this fashion. I started doing this after I saw how effective SXT removed stars, rarely leaving any residual defects or star blemishes.

But the defraction spikes from narrowband SCA260 images seemed to cause it some problems. The blemished remaining caused a lot of trouble with my processing.

 

Another issue I ran into was some diffraction rings on two of the brightest yellow stars.

 

The whole story of the capture and a detailed review of the processing and these issues can be seen here:

cosgrovescosmos.com/projects/m16-sca260-june-2025

 

The final image came out OK - but I have to admit that I like my previous attempt at this target better.

 

Thanks for looking!

Clear Skies,

Pat

Done