Pillars of Creation - Finished!

[Colorado CJ]

I shot the Sulfur II data last night to add to the data I shot last week, completing my first Pillars of Creation, or Eagle Nebula photo.

This is only 75 minutes of H-Alpha, 75 minutes of Sulfur II and 50 minutes of Oxygen III data. I need to shoot more data, but I only have about 2 hours a night where this is visible from my house.

I am thinking of taking the scope out to a different site this weekend so that I can shoot longer than 2 hours on this.

Anyway, here it is!

 

[Ben Egbert]

Wow, I did not think you could improve on the previous image, but you certainly did.

 

[AlanLichty]

Whoa - I have to echo Ben's comment. I wasn't sure what to expect and this exceeds anything I had in mind. Incredible.

 

[JimFox]

Wow! This is amazing Andrew! It's crazy that you could improve on the original even though it had limited data, but this certainly does improve on it by 10 fold! Really great work.

Where do you think you would go there to get more time to shoot? A long distance from your house, or just somewhere close that's an open field?

 

[Colorado CJ]

Thanks everyone!

Jim, I just need to get to a dark area that doesn't have trees. My backyard doesn't have the best view to the south, since my house is one one side of the yard and a row of trees is on the other. When something is low in the sky like this object is, I only have a couple hours a night that I can image it before it goes behind the trees.

Also, darker skies really helps a lot. I live in a Bortle 6 area, going down to a Bortle 4 area would mean I get the same information 4 times faster than I would in my backyard.

 

[Bob Denton]

This is stunning

 

[Colorado CJ]

Something wasn't sitting right with me with this image, but I didn't really see it until tonight. There was too much of a green/yellow cast to the image and it wasn't matching very good with the real Hubble images. So, I tried to fix it somewhat.

I am more happy with this revision as it is closer to the true Hubble Palette.

 

[AlanLichty]

OK - you are right this is even better yet. Amazing work.

 

[Mike Lewis]

Andrew,

Good to see you getting such a quick handle on narrowband post processing. It is a different beast for sure. I think the last revision really is excellent, as it not only has more pleasing coloring and less of a color cast, but more contrast as well. You have really managed to show what can be done on famous targets with amateur gear - very impressive result.

ML

 

[Jim Dockery]

Mike is right about pro results - great work.