View allAll Photos Tagged pillarsofcreation
This image is the result of a live stacking session during a guided tour at the Munich Public Observatory (Volkssternwarte München).
This is a rather tricky object since its low on the horizon from my location (about 20° at best), faint, and seen from a light-polluted city. Still, I wanted to try and see what I could squeeze out of the telescope and camera!
While I found there's quite a few quirks to the optical system, leading among other things to a curved focal plane, a nasty triangle-shaped coma and some chromatic aberration (probably due to the reducer), the guests of the evening were amazed, and so was I that I could make it visible at all!
Equipment:
Meade LX200 16" f/10 SCT
0.63x reducer from an old Lumicon Easy Guider (does not flatten the focal plane!)
no filters
no guiding
ASI294MC pro @ -10°C / gain 120
360 x 10 sec, live stacking (I will try to stack the single frames again sometime soon and try to, e.g., suppress some faint satellite trails in the image)
Processing: SiRiL, fitswork, Luminar 2018
Captured from my backyard observatory in Michigan using the new QHY16200 Mono CCD. I have added H-Alpha data to the original LRGB image www.flickr.com/photos/terryhancock/28432240124/in/datepos... which reduces star size, gives more emphasis on the nebulous regions and a little more detail around the Pillars.
Total Integration time 3.5 hours.
Technical Information
Location: DownUnderObservatory, Fremont, MI
Captured July 25,29, Aug 21 2016
Size: 4540x3630 pixels
Total integration Time 3.5 Hours
QHY16200A monochrome CCD cooled to -20C
QHYOAG-M Off Axis Guider
LUM 70 min, 7 x 10 min each 1x1
RGB 60 min, 4 x 5 min 2x2
H-Alpha 80 min, 8 x 10 min 2x2
Filters by Optolong
Astro-Tech AT12RC with AP 2.7" Reducer @F6.2
Paramount GT-1100S German Equatorial Mount
Image Acquisition Maxim DL
Pre Processing Pixinsight
Post Processing Photoshop CS6
The incandescence of the Eagle Nebula is laced with intricate dark lanes, globules, and huge clouds of dust which shroud ongoing star formation from direct view. The most prominent dark structures are the so-called “Pillars of Creation”, three long fingers of gas and dark dust nearly ten light years long. The Pillars are a field laboratory for the study of star formation and have been examined intensely by astronomers at visible, infrared, and ultraviolet wavelengths. Within the Pillars are much smaller, warmer, and denser regions called evaporating gaseous globules (EGGs), some of which contain just a few solar masses. The EGGs are ground zero for star formation, though it’s difficult to catch these new stars in the act of igniting because they remain obscured by cloaks of dark dust. EGGs located near bright stars are elongated by winds of light and charged particles into what look like schools of celestial tadpoles.
The stars within the Eagle Nebula appear to be in an intermediate state. Stars within the Pillars and other dusty regions remain obscured, while a cluster of some 400 new stars clearly appears in a more transparent section of the nebula. The largest of these stars has a mass some 80 times that of our Sun and the luminosity of perhaps a million Suns. The cluster formed just 2 to 5 million years ago. The nebula itself is only slightly older.
The light we see from the Eagle Nebula and its associated stars left some 7,000 years ago, but some astronomers suspect the Pillars of Creation may have already been obliterated when a massive young star within the nebula detonated as a supernova. The Spitzer Space Telescope detected evidence of a patch of hot gas near the Pillars which may have been caused by such an event about 8,000 years ago. Information from our e-book cosmicpursuits.com/e-books/armchair-astronomer-volume-1-n...
The Eagle Nebula, also known as the Queen of Stars Nebula, was discovered by Philippe Loys de Chéseaux in 1746. It was later observed by Charles Messier, who categorized it as Messier 16 or M16. It is a young open cluster of about 500 stars in the constellation Serpens, approximately 5,700 light-years from Earth.
This nebula is famous for containing several ultradense structures such as the Pillars of Creation, captured by the Hubble Telescope in 1995, and the Stellar Spire or Fairy of the Eagle Nebula, a fantastic column of dust, a site of star formation, that proudly rises above the region.
I, too, am fascinated by these shapes. I had photographed it in 2024 with a 150-600 Newtonian telescope: M 16 - NGC 6611 Nebulosa Aquila - Gruppo Astrofili E. E. Barnard - GAEEB Ciriè Torino Astrofili GAEEB, but the field was too wide to highlight this natural beauty. Now, with the Ritchey-Chretien RC8 telescope, I've been able to take a closer look, and you can see the difference.
Recording and integration data:
• 62 frames of 180 seconds recorded at -10°C with an IDAS NBZ II filter
• 7 frames of 240 seconds recorded at 0°C with an IDAS NBZ II filter
• 71 frames of 120 seconds recorded at 0°C with an IDAS NBZ II filter
For a total of approximately 6 hours, recorded from June 16 to 18, 2026, from Nole (TO)
and integrated on July 14 with
• 58 frames of 30 seconds, equal to approximately 30 minutes, recorded at 0°C with an Optolong L-Pro filter, also from Nole.
Equipment:
•Tecnosky RC8 telescope, ASI 294 MC Pro imaging camera
•60/240 guide scope, ASI 120 MM Mini camera
•Sky-Watcher HEQ5 SynScan GOTO equatorial mount
•Acquisition via Asiair Pro, RGB processing with Pixinsight.
La Nebulosa Aquila, nota anche come Nebulosa Regina delle Stelle, fu scoperta da Philippe Loys de Chéseaux nel 1746. Inseguito fu osservata da Charles Messier che la catologò come Messier 16 o M16. È un giovane ammasso aperto di circa 500 stelle nella costellazione del Serpente, a circa 5700 anni luce dalla Terra.
Questa nebulosa è famosa per contenere al proprio interno alcune strutture ultradense come i Pilastri della Creazione, immortalati dal telescopio Hubble nel 1995 e la Guglia Stellare o Fata della Nebulosa Aquila, una fantastica colonna di polveri, sede di formazione stellare che si innalza orgogliosamente nella regione.
Anch’io affascinato da queste forme, l’avevo ripresa nel 2024 con telescopio Newton 150-600: M 16 - NGC 6611 Nebulosa Aquila - Gruppo Astrofili E. E. Barnard - GAEEB Ciriè Torino Astrofili GAEEB, ma il campo era troppo ampio per dare evidenza di questa bellezza della natura. Ora col telescopio Ritchey-Chretien RC8 ho potuto riprenderla in modo più ravvicinato, e potete vedere la differenza.
Dati di ripresa ed integrazione:
•62 frames da 180 sec ripresi a -10°C con filtro IDAS NBZ II
•7 frames da 240 sec ripresi a 0°C con filtro IDAS NBZ II
•71 frames da 120 sec ripresi a 0°C con filtro IDAS NBZ II
Per un totale di circa 6 ora ripresi dal 16 al 18 Giugno 2026 da Nole (TO)
ed integrati in data 14 Luglio con
•58 frames da 30 sec pari a circa 30 minuti ripresi a 0°C con filtro Optolong L-Pro ripresi sempre da Nole.
Attrezzatura:
•Telescopio Tecnosky RC8, Camera di ripresa ASI 294 MC Pro
•Telescopio guida 60/240, Camera ASI 120 MM Mini
•Montatura Equatoriale Sky-Watcher HEQ5 SynScan GOTO
•Acquisizione tramite Asiair Pro, Elaborazione in RGB con Pixinsight.
Journey with us through Webb’s breathtaking view of the Pillars of Creation, where scores of newly formed stars glisten like dewdrops among floating, translucent columns of gas and dust.
If this majestic landscape looks familiar, you may recognize the original. Hubble first captured the Pillars of Creation in 1995 and revisited it in 2014. Webb’s latest view was taken in near-infrared light, which is invisible to our eyes. Seeing in infrared allows Webb to pierce through the dust and reveal stars galore. (Find a side-by-side comparison of the Pillars of Creation as seen by Hubble and Webb also on our Flickr!)
Why go back to where we’ve been before? Webb helps us identify far more precise counts of newborn stars, along with the quantities of gas and dust. This will deepen our understanding of how stars form and burst out of these dusty clouds over millions of years. Read more: www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-takes-star-...
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
[Image description: This Webb image of the “Pillars of Creation” has layers of semi-opaque, rusty red gas and dust that start at the bottom left and go toward the top right. There are three prominent pillars rising toward the top right. The left pillar is the largest and widest. The peaks of the second and third pillars are set off in darker shades of brown and have red outlines. Peeking through the layers of gas and dust is the background, set in shades of blue and littered with tiny yellow and blue stars. Many of the tips of the pillars appear tinged with what looks like lava. There are also tiny red dots at the edges of the pillars, which are newly born stars.]
La Nebulosa dell'Aquila ripresa in Hubble palette. Esposizione over 32 hours.
image acquisition in collaboration with Alessandro Pensato
Journey with us through Webb’s breathtaking view of the Pillars of Creation, where scores of newly formed stars glisten like dewdrops among floating, translucent columns of gas and dust.
If this majestic landscape looks familiar, you may recognize the original. Hubble first captured the Pillars of Creation in 1995 and revisited it in 2014. Webb’s latest view was taken in near-infrared light, which is invisible to our eyes. Seeing in infrared allows Webb to pierce through the dust and reveal stars galore.
In this image, compare and contrast the Pillars of Creation as seen by Webb and Hubble. On the left here is Hubble’s iconic view, taken in visible light in 2014. On the right is Webb’s new near-infrared view. (Also find a high-res of just the Webb image here on our Flickr!)
Why go back to where we’ve been before? Webb helps us identify far more precise counts of newborn stars, along with the quantities of gas and dust. This will deepen our understanding of how stars form and burst out of these dusty clouds over millions of years. Read more: www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-takes-star-...
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
Image description: Two images of the Pillars of Creation, a star-forming region in space. At left, Hubble’s visible-light view shows darker pillars that rise from the bottom to the top of the screen, ending in three points. The background is opaque, set off in yellow and green toward the bottom and blue and purple at the top. A handful of stars of various sizes appear.
Webb’s near-infrared image at right shows the same pillars, but they are semi-opaque and rusty red-colored. The peaks of the second and third pillars are set off in darker shades of brown and have red outlines. The background is cast in darker blues and blacks, and stars in yellow and white of all sizes speckle the entire scene. Webb’s image was cropped and rotated to match Hubble’s view, so much of the top right corner and a small portion of the left corner has been left black.
Messier 16
These towering tendrils of cosmic dust and gas sit at the heart of M16, or the Eagle Nebula. The aptly named Pillars of Creation, featured in this stunning Hubble image, are part of an active star-forming region within the nebula and hide newborn stars in their wispy columns.
Although this is not Hubble’s first image of this iconic feature of the Eagle Nebula, it is the most detailed. The blue colors in the image represent oxygen, red is sulfur, and green represents both nitrogen and hydrogen. The pillars are bathed in the scorching ultraviolet light from a cluster of young stars located just outside the frame. The winds from these stars are slowly eroding the towers of gas and dust.
Data from the Hubble Space Telescope
Technical Details-
Filters:
Red: hlsp_heritage_hst_wfc3-uvis_m16_f673n_v1_drz
Green: hlsp_heritage_hst_wfc3-uvis_m16_f657n_v1_drz
Blue: hlsp_heritage_hst_wfc3-uvis_m16_f502n_v1_drz)
Image Credits: NASA/ESA/Hubble
Processing and copyright : AMAL BIJU
Instagram: www.instagram.com/exploraspace/
By combining images of the iconic Pillars of Creation from two cameras aboard NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the universe has been framed in its infrared glory. Webb’s near-infrared image was fused with its mid-infrared image, setting this star-forming region ablaze with new details.
Myriad stars are spread throughout the scene. The stars primarily show up in near-infrared light, marking a contribution of Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam). Near-infrared light also reveals thousands of newly formed stars – look for bright orange spheres that lie just outside the dusty pillars.
In mid-infrared light, the dust is on full display. The contributions from Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) are most apparent in the layers of diffuse, orange dust that drape the top of the image, relaxing into a V. The densest regions of dust are cast in deep indigo hues, obscuring our view of the activities inside the dense pillars.
Dust also makes up the spire-like pillars that extend from the bottom left to the top right. This is one of the reasons why the region is overflowing with stars – dust is a major ingredient of star formation. When knots of gas and dust with sufficient mass form in the pillars, they begin to collapse under their own gravitational attraction, slowly heat up, and eventually form new stars. Newly formed stars are especially apparent at the edges of the top two pillars – they are practically bursting onto the scene.
At the top edge of the second pillar, undulating detail in red hints at even more embedded stars. These are even younger, and are quite active as they form. The lava-like regions capture their periodic ejections. As stars form, they periodically send out supersonic jets that can interact within clouds of material, like these thick pillars of gas and dust. These young stars are estimated to be only a few hundred thousand years old, and will continue to form for millions of years.
Almost everything you see in this scene is local. The distant universe is largely blocked from our view both by the interstellar medium, which is made up of sparse gas and dust located between the stars, and a thick dust lane in our Milky Way galaxy. As a result, the stars take center stage in Webb’s view of the Pillars of Creation.
The Pillars of Creation is a small region within the vast Eagle Nebula, which lies 6,500 light-years away.
NIRCam was built by a team at the University of Arizona and Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Center.
MIRI was contributed by ESA and NASA, with the instrument designed and built by a consortium of nationally funded European Institutes (The MIRI European Consortium) in partnership with JPL and the University of Arizona.
Credits:
SCIENCE: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
IMAGE PROCESSING: Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Anton M. Koekemoer (STScI)
CAPTION: webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/01GK2KKTR81SGYF24...
Image description: ALT TEXT: At the bottom left of this almost-square image are the thickest regions of brown and purple gas and dust. There are many layers of semi-transparent gas and dust overlaying one another. A peak rises about a third of the way from the bottom, and becomes far darker with two bright red areas toward the tip, which look like lava. The dust becomes sheer about halfway up the image. There’s a slight gap in the dust, which allows the multi-colored background to come into view. The background is blue at bottom left, orange at top center, and hazy pink in regions right outside the pillars. The light brown pillars continue, taking the shape of a shoulder at the base, with three prominent columns rising out toward the upper right. The top left pillar is the largest and widest. The peaks of the second and third pillars are set off in darker shades of brown and have transparent purple haze just outside them.
La Nébuleuse de l'Aigle M16 dans la constellation de l'Ecu de Sobieski à 650 mm (équivalent à environ 1000 mm en 24x36: 6 photos, 6 Darks, 22 Offsets ; 18 Flats. Assemblage dans IRIS et cosmétique dans Photoshop CS4. Recadrage à la moitié de l'original environ. Nikon D5300 modifié astro par Eos for Astro, Skywatcher Quattro 400 (F=800mm, D=200mm) et Réducteur de coma. Suivi à l'aide d'une Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro. Nikon D5300 avec filtre Astronomik CLS CCD 2"
Paramètres: 6x 120s F/3.5 ISO 1000, 650mm.
Série prise le 2.08.2019 depuis mon jardin.
Also designated Sharpless 171, this is a young irregular emission nebula and star forming region of about 40 light-years across. Powering the nebular glow are the young, hot stars of the Berkeley 59 cluster.
This is a repro of my earlier Cederblad 214 shot. I liked the look of it recropped this way and some slight contrast tweaks. Think the interplay of dust and emission gases shows up a bit better.
Tech details and original here:
Celestron NexStar SE mount, Skywatcher 72ed and Canon 600d. 110x 35 second exposures with calibration frames.
Eagle nebula (M16) is interstellar cloud that composed mainly of hydrogen gas & dust. It contains star formation nurseries like open star cluster NGC 6611. The UV radiation from the young stars is responsible for excitement of the surrounding hydrogen gas to glow in red colour. In the middle of the image is a dark nebula that hiding star formation and famously known as “Pillars of Creation”. This nebula is 7000 light years distant from Earth. Gear setup: Celestron HD 8 @ f/6.3, iOptron GEM 45 guided by SW 50 & ZWO 290MM, Optolong e-Nhance filter, ZWO 2600MC @ 0. Captured by APT, PHD2, Sharp cap pro, 29 x 300sec, 10 Darks, 50 Bias, No Flats. Total integration 2.4 hours. Stacked by APP & Processed by PI and PS. For more image details: www.astrobin.com/full/l8ggxr/0/
There encroached clouds, and exposure session got short.
Equipment: Takahashi FSQ-130ED, F3 Reducer 0.6x, IDAS NB12 Dual Narrowband Filter, and EOS R-SP4II, modified by Seo San on ZWO AM5n Equatorial Mount, autoguided with Fujinon 1:2.8/75mm C-Mount Lens, Pentax x2 Extender, ZWO ASI 174MM-mini, and PHD2 Guiding
Exposure: 3 times x 900 seconds, 2 x 240 sec, and 3 x 60 seconds at ISO 6,400 and f/3.0, focal length 390mm
site: 1,118m above sea level at lat. 38 56 39 North and long. 140 48 17 East in Iwakagami-daira on the southern slope of Mt. Kurikoma in Kurihara Miyagi 宮城県栗原市 栗駒山 いわかがみ平
Ambient temperature was around 13 degrees Celsius or 55 degrees Fahrenheit. Wind was mild.
Messier M16 the Eagle Nebula
Contains the Pillars of Creation that was made popular by a Hubble Image.
Acquisition:
40 3 min exposures total of 2 hours
Location: Rural area west of Houston
Bortle: 4/5
Moon: 78%
Gear:
Mount: ZWO AM5
Main Cam: ZWO ASI294MC Pro @ gain 121 and -4F
Guide Cam: ZWO ASI120MM Mini with ZWO 30mm f/4 scope
Lens: Sigma 150-600 @ 600
Filter: Baader Moon and Sky Glow
Processing:
Pixinsight WBPP
GraXpert Gradient removal
Pixinsight SPCC, SCNR, Blur and NoiseXTerminator
Pixinsight StarXterminator, Levels, Curves
Photo Shop/ACR final edits
Eagle nebula (M16 / NGC6611) revisited with the new Tamron 150-600 mm f/6.3!
EXIF: Canon 70D, Tamron 150-600 mm @ 600 mm (x1.6 cf = 960 mm) Di VC USD G2, f/6.3, iso 12.8k, 20'' with iOptron II.
Photography and Licensing: doudoulakis.blogspot.com/
My books concerning natural phenomena / Τα βιβλία μου σχετικά με τα φυσικά φαινόμενα: www.facebook.com/TaFisikaFainomena/
This spectacular image was captured by JWST’s Near Infrared Camera, or NIRCam.
_________________________________
Journey with us through Webb’s breathtaking view of the Pillars of Creation, where scores of newly formed stars glisten like dewdrops among floating, translucent columns of gas and dust.
If this majestic landscape looks familiar, you may recognize the original. Hubble first captured the Pillars of Creation in 1995 and revisited it in 2014. Webb’s latest view was taken in near-infrared light, which is invisible to our eyes. Seeing in infrared allows Webb to pierce through the dust and reveal stars galore. (Find a side-by-side comparison of the Pillars of Creation as seen by Hubble and Webb also on our Flickr!)
Why go back to where we’ve been before? Webb helps us identify far more precise counts of newborn stars, along with the quantities of gas and dust. This will deepen our understanding of how stars form and burst out of these dusty clouds over millions of years. Read more: www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-takes-star-...
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
[Image description: This Webb image of the “Pillars of Creation” has layers of semi-opaque, rusty red gas and dust that start at the bottom left and go toward the top right. There are three prominent pillars rising toward the top right. The left pillar is the largest and widest. The peaks of the second and third pillars are set off in darker shades of brown and have red outlines. Peeking through the layers of gas and dust is the background, set in shades of blue and littered with tiny yellow and blue stars. Many of the tips of the pillars appear tinged with what looks like lava. There are also tiny red dots at the edges of the pillars, which are newly born stars.]
_________________________________
NASA Honors University of Arizona Regents Professors, Alumna for Space Exploration, Astronomy.
University of Arizona Regents Professors Marcia and George Rieke and UArizona alumna Jane Rigby have been recognized with NASA Distinguished Public Service Medals for their accomplishments in astronomy and key contributions to the James Webb Space Telescope.
University Communications
University of Arizona Regents Professors Marcia and George Rieke have each been recognized with NASA Distinguished Public Service Medals for their contributions to the field of astronomy and their key roles in the development of cutting-edge instruments for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST.
The medals, awarded this month, are the highest distinction the agency bestows upon nongovernmental personnel.
In addition to the Riekes, UArizona alumna Jane Rigby, who serves as the operations project scientist for JWST, was honored with the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for her scientific contributions and leadership. Rigby, who graduated with a doctorate in astronomy from UArizona in 2006, has played a pivotal role in the successful transition of JWST from commissioning to routine science observations. Her work at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has been crucial to ensuring the seamless operation of the space observatory.
Marcia Rieke – as the principal investigator who led the development of JWST’s Near Infrared Camera, or NIRCam – has demonstrated unparalleled dedication and leadership, according to her nomination for the medal. The NIRCam project, considered the most challenging instrument development effort in the JWST program, proved to be 10 times more complex than initially anticipated.
In his capacity as the science team lead for JWST’s Mid-Infrared Instrument, or MIRI, George Rieke has been instrumental in facilitating international collaboration among 10 European countries and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The star-forming region known as the Pillars of Creation was imaged by the James Webb Space Telescope
The infrared instruments on the James Webb Space Telescope enable the space observatory to peer through dense dust that visible light can’t penetrate. This image shows the iconic “Pillars of Creation” – a region where new stars are forming within dense clouds of gas and dust.
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Anton M. Koekemoer (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
Over the course of five decades with the UArizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and Steward Observatory, the Riekes, a husband-and-wife research team, helped the field of infrared astronomy – once a niche endeavor fraught with extreme technical challenges – flourish into a powerful discipline that has allowed scientists to see the universe in ways that were once deemed impossible.
Marcia Rieke’s unwavering focus, diligence, and hands-on approach in the face of formidable technical and programmatic challenges set a remarkable example for her peers, according to the award notification from NASA. In addition to her work on NIRCam, she has made significant contributions as the deputy principal investigator for the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer, or NICMOS, on the Hubble Space Telescope and as a co-investigator on the Multiband Imaging Photometer instrument, or MIPS, on the Spitzer Infrared Space Telescope. Her influential role in advancing the field of infrared astronomy is widely recognized.
With JWST, Marcia Rieke hopes to discover the most distant and therefore earliest and youngest galaxies in the universe, and trace how they changed over time. She also researches the atmospheres of exoplanets – planets outside of the solar system –to understand what they are made of.
“After so many years of anticipation, finally seeing galaxies at an age of only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang has been the culmination of my career,” she said. “Seeing the happy faces of my team says it all.”
George Rieke played a vital role in coordinating the construction of the MIRI instrument, successfully uniting diverse teams. His award citation highlights his exceptional leadership, visionary approach and willingness to collaborate beyond his official responsibilities, acting as the “U.S. PI (principal investigator) for MIRI.” He has also made significant contributions to infrared astronomy as the principal investigator for Spitzer’s MIPS instrument.
George Rieke says he is excited about JWST’s capabilities to look at the evolution of the central massive black holes in galaxies. By combining previous radio, optical, ultraviolet and X-ray observations with those from JWST, his team is looking for elusive, very young black holes that are likely to be deeply shrouded in gas and dust that absorbs nearly all their output and emits it in the infrared where MIRI can find them. His team is also exploring small bodies, such as asteroids, in planetary systems outside of our solar system.
Artist's impression of the James Webb Space Telescope in space
Marcia and George Rieke have played significant roles in developing two critical instruments of the James Webb Space Telescope: Marcia is the principal investigator of the Near-Infrared Camera, or NIRCam, and George serves as the project scientist for MIRI, which stands for Mid-Infrared Instrument. NASA
“It is so exciting not just for me but for our entire research group to see so many aspects of astronomical sources that were completely out of reach to us before the launch of JWST,” George Rieke said. “It took 50 years to make this happen, but what a fantastic reward.”
Rigby is known for her groundbreaking research on using gravitational lensing to study galaxies in the early universe. This work, which originated during her doctoral studies at UArizona, has continued through her leadership of the JWST project TEMPLATES, which stands for Targeting Extremely Magnified Panchromatic Lensed Arcs and their Extended Star Formation. TEMPLATES leverages JWST’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph and MIRI to obtain high-resolution spectral images of gravitationally lensed galaxies. This allows Rigby and her team to construct images of early-universe galaxies that are much more detailed than what would be possible to observe with conventional imaging techniques.
Rigby’s achievements have garnered numerous accolades, including the NASA Robert H. Goddard Award for Exceptional Achievement for Science, Nature’s 10 Ones to Watch in 2022, BBC’s 100 Women and other honors. She also had the honor of presenting and explaining the first JWST results to President Joe Biden.
“All of us at Steward Observatory are incredibly happy that NASA is recognizing Marcia, George, and Jane for their major contributions to JWST,” said Buell T. Jannuzi, director of Steward Observatory and head of the Department of Astronomy. “By recognizing their achievements, NASA is also recognizing the teams these three amazing individuals have formed, developed, and sustained throughout the years it took to develop, launch, and commission JWST. We are looking forward to celebrating with George and Marcia once they receive their medals at Goddard Space Flight Center.”
Recreation of the legendary photo "The Pillars of Creation" of in Eagle nebula.
I processed raw image data from Hubble space telescope.
Hubble captured this image using narrow band filters (SHO filters) / Hubble Palette.
Original images are black and white.
Ha (Hydrogen alpha)filter -657nm
OIII(Oxygen) filter -502nm
SII(Sulpher) filter -673nm
Resolution : 8000x8400 (64MP)
The processed photo takes around 279 MB on disk.
The Eagle nebula (M16/NGC6611) in the constellation Serpens imaged through narrowband filters using an 8" SCT (at F10 - 2032mm focal length), with an astromodded and active cooled DSLR.
The color channels are SII, HAlpha and OIII as RGB, and color balanced to remove the heavy green color cast created by the strong Hydrogen Alpha signal.
The total exposure time spent on this image was 20 hours and 57 minutes.
Published in Amateur Astrophotography Magazine Issue 71 December 2019
The Eagle Nebula (catalogued as Messier 16 or M16, as NGC 6611, and as IC 4703, and also known as the Star Queen Nebula and The Spire) is a young open cluster of stars in the constellation Serpens, discovered by Jean-Philippe de Chéseaux in 1745–46. Both the "Eagle" and the "Star Queen" refer to visual impressions of the dark silhouette near the center of the nebula, an area made famous as the "Pillars of Creation" photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope. The nebula contains several active star-forming gas and dust regions, including the Pillars of Creation.
13h20m total integration (27x1200s Ha, 13x1200s OIII). Alcalalí, Spain 29/5-15/6/2017.
APM TMB 152 F8 LZOS, 10 Micron GM2000HPS, QSI6120wsg8
Messier n°16
Anche conosciuta come nebulosa aquila è una grande regione HII visibile nella costellazione della Coda del serpente; è formata da un giovane ammasso aperto di stelle associato ad una nebulosa ad emissione composta da idrogeno ionizzato, catalogata come IC 4703 in questa immagine ho provato a ripercorre i passi dell iconica immagine scattata dal telescopio spaziale Hubble intitolata "I pilastri della creazione" creando un immagine in falsi colori in gergo SHO
equipment:
cdk 17 ;
ha 20x180
sii 30x180
OIII 30x180
pixinsight, photoshop
The Pillars of Creation are a particular area of the Eagle Nebula, 6500 light years from Earth. This image was taken by the JWST using the NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera). Our artificial intelligence model has thoroughly reprocessed the captured image, expanding the colour gamut and significantly increasing detail and sharpness. The result is an image of 32000x55334 pixels (1.771 billion pixels total). It should currently be the most defined image of this area of space.
Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Anton M. Koekemoer (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI), PipploIMP (for AI magnification and reconstruction)
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The Eagle nebula (M16 & NGC 6611) in the constellation Serpens imaged in natural color using a 8" SCT, with an astromodded and cooled DSLR.
These eerie, dark pillar-like structures are columns of cool interstellar hydrogen gas and dust that are also incubators for new stars. The pillars protrude from the interior wall of a dark molecular cloud like stalagmites from the floor of a cavern. They are part of the "Eagle Nebula" (also called M16 -- the 16th object in Charles Messier's 18th century catalog of "fuzzy" objects that aren't comets), a nearby star-forming region 7,000 light-years away in the constellation Serpens. Ultraviolet light is responsible for illuminating the convoluted surfaces of the columns and the ghostly streamers of gas boiling away from their surfaces, producing the dramatic visual effects that highlight the three dimensional nature of the clouds. The tallest pillar (left) is about a light-year long from base to tip. As the pillars themselves are slowly eroded away by the ultraviolet light, small globules of even denser gas buried within the pillars are uncovered. These globules have been dubbed "EGGs." EGGs is an acronym for "Evaporating Gaseous Globules," but it is also a word that describes what these objects are. Forming inside at least some of the EGGs are embryonic stars, stars that abruptly stop growing when the EGGs are uncovered and they are separated from the larger reservoir of gas from which they were drawing mass. Eventually, the stars themselves emerge from the EGGs as the EGGs themselves succumb to photoevaporation. The picture was taken on April 1, 1995 with the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The color image is constructed from three separate images taken in the light of emission from different types of atoms. Red shows emission from singly-ionized sulfur atoms. Green shows emission from hydrogen. Blue shows light emitted by doubly- ionized oxygen atoms.
Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, and J. Hester and P. Scowen (Arizona State University)
Image Number: PR95-44A
Date: April 1, 1995
MESSIER 16, NGC 6611 - EAGLE NEBULA, STAR QUEEN NEBULA
Messier 16 is a conspicuous region of active star formation, appearing in the constellation Serpens Cauda. This giant cloud of interstellar gas and dust is commonly known as the Eagle Nebula, and has already created a cluster of young stars. The nebula is also referred to the Star Queen Nebula and as IC 4703; the cluster is NGC 6611.
The cluster was discovered by Philippe Loys de Cheseaux in 1745-1746, who made no mention of the nebula. Charles Messier independently rediscovered the cluster in 1764, and described its stars as "enmeshed in a faint glow", suggesting that he discovered the nebula as well.
The Eagle Nebula lies some 7,000 light years away in the Sagittarius-Carina spiral arm of our galaxy - the next arm inward from us. At this distance, the cluster's angular diameter corresponds to a linear size of about 15 light years. The nebula extends much farther out, to dimensions of about 70 x 55 light years. M 16 might form one giant complex with M 17, the Omega Nebula, to the south in Sagittarius.
M 16's stellar swarm is only about 5.5 million years old, with its hottest, youngest stars of spectral type O6. Excited by high-energy ultraviolet radiation from these massive stars, this great cloud of interstellar gas glows by fluorescence.
RA: 18h 19m 57.2s
DEC: -13° 46’ 26.7“
Location: Serpens
Distance: 7,000 ly
Captured May 2018
Fiel Of view: 3.87 x 2.55 deg
Total acquisition time of 4 hours.
Technical Details
iTelescope T12
Data acquisition & processing: Nicolas ROLLAND
Location: Siding Spring Observatory, Australia
Ha 16 x 300sec
OIII 16 x 300sec
SII 16 x 300sec
Optics: Takahashi FSQ106 EDX3 @F/D 5.0
Mount: Paramount ME
CCD: FLI Microline 11002
Pre Processing: Pixinsight
Post Processing: Photoshop CC
Imaging Deep Space objects in heavy light polluted skies is not easy, however still possible as this image shows taken from my balcony in Singapore that met my primary objective and shows the level of detail that can still be achieved.
Objective: to capture enough detail in the Pillars of Creation to show star formation
The image is in narrowband presented in the Hubble colour palette and consists pf 3 sets of monochrome images, each in a specific wavelength of light. These “channels” are then stacked and brought together into an RGB colour image
Red - Sii - 120 subs of 120 seconds
Green - Ha - 150 images of 120 seconds (Data used for luminance channel)
Blue - Oiii - 120 images of 120 seconds
All at Bin 2 and captured over 5 nights.
Equipment
OTA: Celestron Edge HD11
Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI 6200MM Pro
Guidescope : Williams optic GuideStar 61
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI ASI174MM Mini
Guide and Imaging through ASIAIR Pro
Re-creation of the “Pillars of Creation” in the Eagle Nebula M16.
I processed the data of the HST with my own methods in PixInsight and PS. HST wavelengths: 502nm; 656nm; 673nm.
Credit: NASA / HST / Dr. S. Voltmer www.voltmer.photo
This eerie, dark structure, resembling an imaginary sea serpent's head, is a column of cool molecular hydrogen gas (two atoms of hydrogen in each molecule) and dust that is an incubator for new stars. The stars are embedded inside finger-like protrusions extending from the top of the nebula. Each "fingertip" is somewhat larger than our own solar system. The pillar is slowly eroding away by the ultraviolet light from nearby hot stars, a process called "photoevaporation." As it does, small globules of especially dense gas buried within the cloud is uncovered. These globules have been dubbed "EGGs" -- an acronym for "Evaporating Gaseous Globules." The shadows of the EGGs protect gas behind them, resulting in the finger-like structures at the top of the cloud. Forming inside at least some of the EGGs are embryonic stars -- stars that abruptly stop growing when the EGGs are uncovered and they are separated from the larger reservoir of gas from which they were drawing mass. Eventually the stars emerge, as the EGGs themselves succumb to photoevaporation. The stellar EGGS are found, appropriately enough, in the "Eagle Nebula" (also called M16 -- the 16th object in Charles Messier's 18th century catalog of "fuzzy" permanent objects in the sky), a nearby star-forming region 7,000 light-years away in the constellation Serpens. The picture was taken on April 1, 1995 with the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The color image is constructed from three separate images taken in the light of emission from different types of atoms. Red shows emission from singly-ionized sulfur atoms. Green shows emission from hydrogen. Blue shows light emitted by doubly-ionized oxygen atoms.
Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, J. Hester and P. Scowen (Arizona State University)
Image Number: PR95-44D
Date: April 1, 1995
Hello Flickr friends! Feb. 20 is a quirky holiday called "Love Your Pet Day." To celebrate, we looked up the top seven pets and searched for space images for each animal. Now we're up to #3: the lofty and soaring Bird. In their avian honor, here's a beautiful image of the Eagle Nebula.
There were actually a lot of great bird-themed images. You can also check out the Phoenix Cluster (chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/phoenix/) and the Columba (Latin for Dove) constellation (chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2010/a3376/ ).
Caption: A look at the famous "Pillars of Creation" with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has allowed astronomers to peer inside the dark columns of gas and dust. This penetrating view of the central region of the Eagle Nebula reveals how much star formation is happening inside these iconic structures.
The Chandra data shows bright X-ray sources in this field, most of which are young stars. In this image, red, green, and blue represent low, medium, and high energy X-rays. The Chandra data have been overlaid on the Hubble Space Telescope image to show the context of these X-ray data.
Very few X-ray sources are found in the pillars themselves. This suggests that the Eagle Nebula may be past its star-forming prime, since young stars are usually bright X-ray sources. However, there are two X-ray objects found near the tips of the pillars. One is a young star about 4 or 5 times as massive as the Sun, visible as the blue source near the tip of the pillar on the left. The other is a lower mass star near the top of the other pillar that is so faint it is not visible in the composite image.
The Chandra observations did not detect X-rays from any of the so-called evaporating gaseous globules, or EGGs. The EGGs are dense, compact pockets of interstellar gas where stars are believed to be forming. The lack of X-rays from these objects may mean that most of the EGGs do not contain enshrouded stars. However, infrared observations have shown that 11 of the 73 EGGs contain infant stellar objects and 4 of these are massive enough to form a star. The stars embedded in these 4 EGGs might be so young that they have not generated X-rays yet and one of them (E42) - estimated to have about the mass of the Sun - could represent one of the earliest stages of evolution of our nearest star. The Sun was likely born in a region like the Pillars of Creation.
The pillars and the few stars forming inside them are the last vestiges of star formation in the Eagle Nebula, also known as M16, which peaked several million years earlier. This contrasts strongly with the active star forming regions in other clusters such as NGC 2024, where Chandra sees a dense cluster of embedded young stars.
The results were published in the January 1st issue of The Astrophysical Journal and the research team, led by Jeffrey Linsky of the University of Colorado, includes Marc Gagne and Anna Mytyk (West Chester University), Mark McCaughrean (University of Exeter) and Morten Andersen (University of Arizona).
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/U.Colorado/Linsky et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/ASU/J.Hester & P.Scowen.
Original image: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2007/m16/
Read more about Chandra:
p.s. You can see all of our Chandra photos in the Chandra Group in Flickr at: www.flickr.com/groups/chandranasa/ We'd love to have you as a member!
_____________________________________________
These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights please visit: www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelin...
In honour of the Hubble Space Telescope 25th anniversary I thought I'd create my own version of the famous Pillars of Creation but in widefield.
This is M16 the Eagle Nebula in a modified Hubble Palette using the turquoise and gold motif.
It consists of 5 x 300 seconds SII mapped to the red channel, 5 x 300 seconds Ha to the green channel and 3 x 300 seconds OIII to the blue channel. A luminance layer was created using the sum of all three channels. The motif resulting from stretching the blue and red channels and then amending using incremental selective colour changes.
317mm f/7.4 Ritchey-Cretin scope, SBIG ST-10XME camera
Imaged remotely from SSO
One of the Hubble Space Telescope's most famous images, these towers of gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula (M16) are known as the "Pillars of Creation."
The pillars are in some ways akin to buttes in the desert, where basalt and other dense rock have protected a region from erosion, while the surrounding landscape has been worn away over millennia. In this celestial case, it is especially dense clouds of molecular hydrogen gas and dust that have survived longer than their surroundings in the face of a flood of ultraviolet light from hot, massive newborn stars (located off the top edge of the picture). This process is called "photoevaporation." This ultraviolet light is also responsible for illuminating the convoluted surfaces of the columns and the ghostly streamers of gas boiling away from their surfaces, producing the dramatic visual effects that highlight the three-dimensional nature of the clouds. The tallest pillar (left) is about 4 light-years long from base to tip.
As the pillars themselves are slowly eroded away by the ultraviolet light, small globules of even denser gas buried within the pillars are uncovered. Forming inside at least some of the globules are embryonic stars.
For more information, visit: hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/1995/news-1995-44.html
Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, J. Hester and P. Scowen (Arizona State University)
The Eagle Nebula- aka Messier 16 is a perennial favourite of astro photographers.
This is a widefield of an object that I have photographed before, but now for the first time in SHO narrowband and in the palette made famous by the iconic " Pillars of Creation " Hubble Space Telescope image. It's a slight crop from the full image
This image is a result of a total of 12 hours of data integration- 4 hours each in the H Alpha, Oxygen III and Sulphur II wavelengths respectively. ( All 10 minute sub exposures)
Equipment:
EQ6/Redcat 51- (gosh I love this telescope)/ QHY 183 MM CMOS camera/ Baader 7 nm H alpha filter/ SvBony 7 nm OIIIand 7 nm SII filters
Software:
N.I.N.A / PhD2/ AstroPixel Processor/ Starnet++/ Topaz AI/ Photoshop CS6
Processing:
My first ever SHO image- had no idea how to process so followed a blend of the Sara Wager process and Bob Franke ( Focal Pointe Observatory) process with further editing in Photoshop
Location
Bortle 6 suburban
A portrait of the Eagle (top) and Swan Nebulas, aka Messier 16 and Messier 17, on the border of Sagittarius and Serpens. M16 contains the famous "Pillars of Creation."
Below M17 is the sparse star cluster M18. Above M16 is the small star cluster Trumpler 32. The separate patch of nebulosity to the right of M17 is IC 4706. The dim nebula below left of M16 is Sharpless 2-48; the smaller bit of nebulosity upper right of M17 is Sharpless 2-47; the diffuse area of nebulosity below right of M17 is Sharpless 2-44. Dust obscures much of this field and yellows the star clouds.
The field is 4.7° x 3.1°.
This is a stack of 10 x 6-minute exposures with the Astro-Tech 90CFT refractor with its 0.8x Reducer/Flattener for f/4.8, and the filter-modified Canon EOS R at ISO 800. Shot on a very clear night from home September 15, 2023, making it possible to shoot this field low in my south and late in the season for this area. No filter employed other than a UV/IR Cut filter. No darks applied, just dithering with the Lacerta MGEN III autoguider and camera controller to eliminate hot pixels when stacking and aligning.
Nebulosity enhanced with Curves adjustment layers, the Nebula Filter action in PhotoKemi actions, and Detail Extractor filter in Nik Collection Color EFX, all selectively applied with luminosity masks created by Lumenzia and TK Actions.
Roughly 5700 light-years away, this active region of star formation was made famous by the Hubble Telescope back in 1995. With the "Pillars of Creation" appearing as stellar spires in the center, the Eagle Nebula (aka Star Queen Nebula) contains several regions of star-forming gas and dust.
I captured this image (from my home in Colorado) using an iTelescope.net telescope based in the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia. I captured 25 images over 3 nights and processed them with Astro Pixel Processor and Photoshop.
I'll get better. Eagle nebula with my new gear. A DSLR instead of dedicated Astro cam, but I'm happy for now. About 3 hours worth of exposure.
Taken from Coral Towers Observatory using an SBIG STL-11000 camera and Takahashi BRC 250 telescope on a Software Bisque PME Mount.
H-alpha filter; 6 hours exposure total (36 x 10 min)
LINK
Other images from this series:
False Colour: www.flickr.com/photos/jbrimacombe/51630262673/
Mono: www.flickr.com/photos/jbrimacombe/51630037926/
Negative Mono: www.flickr.com/photos/jbrimacombe/51630688064/
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope revisited the famous Pillars of Creation, revealing a sharper and wider view of the structures in this visible-light image.
Astronomers combined several Hubble exposures to assemble the wider view. The towering pillars are about 5 light-years tall. The dark, finger-like feature at bottom right may be a smaller version of the giant pillars. The image was taken with Hubble's versatile and sharp-eyed Wide Field Camera 3.
The pillars are bathed in the blistering ultraviolet light from a grouping of young, massive stars located off the top of the image. Streamers of gas can be seen bleeding off the pillars as the intense radiation heats and evaporates it into space. Denser regions of the pillars are shadowing material beneath them from the powerful radiation. Stars are being born deep inside the pillars, which are made of cold hydrogen gas laced with dust. The pillars are part of a small region of the Eagle Nebula (also known as Messier 16), a vast star-forming region 6,500 light-years from Earth.
The colors in the image highlight emission from several chemical elements. Oxygen emission is blue, sulfur is orange, and hydrogen and nitrogen are green.
For more information, visit: hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2015/news-2015-01.html
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
This image of the Pillars of Creation, captured by Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), shows compass arrows, a scale bar, and a colour key for reference. The Pillars of Creation lie within the Eagle Nebula, which is also known as Messier 16 (M16). The north and east compass arrows show the orientation of the image on the sky. Note that the relationship between north and east on the sky (as seen from below) is flipped relative to the direction arrows on a map of the ground (as seen from above). The scale bar is labelled in light-years, which is the distance that light travels in one Earth-year. (It takes 2 years for light to travel a distance equal to the length of the scale bar.) One light-year is equal to about 9.46 trillion kilometres. The field of view shown in this image is approximately 7 light-years across. This image shows invisible mid-infrared wavelengths of light that have been translated into visible-light colours. The colour key shows which MIRI filters were used when collecting the light. The colour of each filter name is the visible light colour used to represent the infrared light that passes through that filter. MIRI was contributed by ESA and NASA, with the instrument designed and built by a consortium of nationally funded European Institutes (The MIRI European Consortium) in partnership with JPL and the University of Arizona. [Image Description: Titled James Webb Space Telescope, Pillars of Creation, M16. Graphic elements added to the image are compass arrows, scale bar, and colour key. Below the image is a colour key showing which MIRI filters were used to create the image and which visible-light colour is assigned to each filter.]
Called one of the most iconic pictures produced by the Hubble Space Telescope, here is my image of the so-named “Pillars of Creation” that resides at the center of the Eagle Nebula (M16).
Taken over four nights from my light-polluted front driveway, this image consists of 123 sub-exposures that were each exposed for 2 minutes using a 5” aperture refractor and a ZWO ASI178MM-Cool camera equipped with a narrow-band hydrogen-alpha filter.
Image capture was controlled by Sequence Generator Pro and PhD v2 guiding software. Image processing was done with PixInsight and Photoshop CC2015.
This photo is best seen against a dark background or in the Flickr light box at full size (1920 x 1280 pixels).
All rights reserved.
The Eagle nebula (M16/NGC6611) located in the constellation Serpens and cropped to emphasize the famous "Pillars of Creation" part of the nebula, made popular by the HST image of the same name.
This photo was imaged through narrowband filters using an 8" SCT (at F10 - 2032mm focal length), with an astromodded and active cooled DSLR.
The color channels are SII, HAlpha and OIII as RGB, and color balanced to remove the heavy green color cast created by the strong Hydrogen Alpha signal.
The total exposure time spent on this image was 20 hours and 57 minutes.
This object is located in the constellation of Serpens among the rich star fields of the Milky Way. The “Pillars of Creation” (dark material silhouetted in the center) are structures of dust and hydrogen gas which harbor active star formation. They are seen to trail away from the nearby cluster of hot blue stars (upper right) due to pressure of the collective stellar wind.
From a temporal perspective, things get interesting. Evidence suggests that the Pillars may have been torn asunder by a supernova that occurred thousands of years ago. The light from the supernova would have reached us in the distant past, but the destruction from the slower-moving shock wave is yet to reveal itself to us.
The nebula lies 7,000 light years distant within our Milky Way
This image was captured under high desert skies near Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA with a telescope (SCT) of 12" aperture at f/8 and an electrically-cooled CCD camera. 195 minutes exposure LRGB.
I saw these data were released earlier so of course I had to dig right in and get my hands dirty. When I saw the original press release a few days ago I had a strong urge to create a visible + IR so I am happy the FITS files were released so that I could do this.
Visible in reds and yellows are stars which shine brightly in infrared but very faintly or not at all in the narrowband visible imagery. Light blue represents the three visible filters combined to create a single blue channel. What I like most about this choice of color palette is that it makes the baby stars embedded in the tips of the pillars glow a fiery red like burning embers.
Anyway, be sure you check out the official press release for the full details on these magnificent objects.
If you are interested in processing your own version of these data, know that they are available for public use from this page. Datasets were assigned to color channels as follows:
Red: hlsp_heritage_hst_wfc3-ir_m16_f160w_v1_drz
Green: hlsp_heritage_hst_wfc3-ir_m16_f110w_v1_drz
Blue: hlsp_heritage_hst_wfc3-uvis_m16_f502n_v1_drz + hlsp_heritage_hst_wfc3-uvis_m16_f657n_v1_drz + hlsp_heritage_hst_wfc3-uvis_m16_f673n_v1_drz
North is NOT up. It is 35° counter-clockwise from up.
M16 Eagle nebula
Narrow band image of the pillars of creation.
Using the Hubble palette, plus Hb filter
C14 edge working at F7.8
EQ8 mount
Atik414 camera
Baader filters
Total exposure 5hrs
Artemis capture
Nebulosity
Topaz Gigapixel - AI.sharpen
Photoshop
This is my first attempt at imaging M16 and the "Pillars of Creation". Where I am located I have many trees further down the road that block the view this low to the horizon, so with a 1.5 hour window each evening, I managed to get a few good clear nights and build the image successfully. I also plan on creating a drizzle of the center showing the pillars of creation in a bit more detail.
Image Details:
Red Channel: 51x300S - 6nm SII
Green Channel: 51x300S - 6nm Ha
Blue Channel - 51x300S - 6nm OIII
Darks and flats subtracted from all frames
Images were acquired on the following dates:
July 21, 2019, July 24, 2019, July 28, 2019, July 31, 2019, Aug. 1, 2019, Aug. 3, 2019, Aug. 19, 2019, Aug. 20, 2019, Aug. 21, 2019, Aug. 22, 2019, Aug. 23, 2019, Aug. 24, 2019, Aug. 25, 2019, Aug. 26, 2019, Aug. 27, 2019
Total of 12.8 Hours
Equipment Details:
Mount: Sky-Watcher EQ8 Pro Direct USB Control with EQMOD
Imaging Camera: QHYCCD QHY183M Mono ColdMOS 20mpx Camera at -20C
Imaging Scope: Sky-Watcher Quattro 8" Imaging Newtonian
Corrector/Reducer: ASA 0.73x Reducer (F2.9)
Guide Camera: StarlightXpress Lodestar X2
Filters: Astronomik 36mm 6nm Ha, OIII and SII
Filterwheel: StarlightXpress 7x36mm USB Filterwheel with Off Axis Guider
Focuser: Primaluce Labs Sesto Senso Electronig Focuser
USB Control: Pegasus Astro Ultimate USB Hub
Image Acquisition Software: Main Sequence Software Sequence Generator Pro
Guide Software: PHD2 2.6.6
Processing Software: PixInsight 1.8.6
Edited Webb Space Telescope image of the Eagle Nebula (M16) seen in mid-infrared and colored appropriately for Halloween.
Original caption: The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s mid-infrared view of the Pillars of Creation strikes a chilling tone. Thousands of stars that exist in this region disappear from view — and seemingly endless layers of gas and dust become the centrepiece. The detection of dust by Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) is extremely important — dust is a major ingredient for star formation. Many stars are actively forming in these dense blue-grey pillars. When knots of gas and dust with sufficient mass form in these regions, they begin to collapse under their own gravitational attraction, slowly heat up, and eventually form new stars. Although the stars appear to be missing, they aren’t. Stars typically do not emit much mid-infrared light. Instead, they are easiest to detect in ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light. In this MIRI view, two types of stars can be identified. The stars at the end of the thick, dusty pillars have recently eroded most of the more distant material surrounding them but they can be seen in mid-infrared light because they are still surrounded by cloaks of dust. In contrast, blue tones indicate stars that are older and have shed most of their gas and dust. Mid-infrared light also details dense regions of gas and dust. The red region toward the top, which forms a delicate V shape, is where the dust is both diffuse and cooler. And although it may seem like the scene clears toward the bottom left of this view, the darkest grey areas are where densest and coolest regions of dust lie. Notice that there are many fewer stars and no background galaxies popping into view. Webb’s mid-infrared data will help researchers determine exactly how much dust is in this region — and what it’s made of. These details will make models of the Pillars of Creation far more precise. Over time, we will begin to understand more clearly how stars form and burst out of these dusty clouds over millions of years. Contrast this view with Webb’s near-infrared light image. MIRI was contributed by ESA and NASA, with the instrument designed and built by a consortium of nationally funded European Institutes (The MIRI European Consortium) in partnership with JPL and the University of Arizona. [Image Description: Semi-opaque layers of blue and grey gas and dust start at the bottom left and rise toward the top right. There are three prominent pillars. The left pillar is the largest and widest. The peaks of the second and third pillars are set off in darker shades of blue outlines. Few red stars appear within the pillars. Some blue and white stars dot the overall scene.]
(Note: This image was an experiment in processing. It was taken with my 80mm refractor. I plan on replacing it soon with a much larger number of frames from my larger Ritchey-Chretien 152mm telescope. That will give me more data and resolution.)
Messier 16 The Eagle Nebula with One Shot Color Camera. The Eagle Nebula is rich in colors, but while narrowband filters will keep the colors separate, it's difficult to have the proper color separations when using a one shot color (OSC) camera. This image was made with 25 exposures at 300 seconds each on a ZWO ASI294MC Pro one-shot color camera cooled to -5C and with the Gain set to 120. The key to showing multiple colors in the nebula was adjusting colors through the use of range masks for successive areas surrounding the core in Pixinsight software. Final touchup was in Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud software. Acquisition of the exposures was with Astrophotography Tool software, and guiding was through an Orion 50mm 242 FL guide scope using a ZWO ASI183MC camera connected to PHD2 auto-guiding software. The mount was a Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro. The target was very low on the horizon, but the use of an STC Astro Duo Narrowband filter helped clean things up a bit.
La Nébuleuse de l'Aigle M16 dans la constellation du Sagittaire à 800 mm (équivalent à environ 1200 mm en 24x36: 24 photos, 20 Darks, 23 Offsets ; 26 Flats. Assemblage dans IRIS et cosmétique dans Photoshop CS4. Recadrage à la moitié de l'original environ. Nikon D5300 modifié astro par Eos for Astro, Skywatcher Quattro 400 (F=800mm, D=200mm). Suivi à l'aide d'une Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro. Nikon D5300 avec filtre clip in Astro Hutech LPS-V4-N5.
Paramètres: 24x 105s F/4 ISO 1000, 800mm.
Série prise le 3.08.2019 depuis mon jardin.