Image of the Month

M-16 (NGC-6611): An open star cluster and emission nebula located in the constellation of Serpens. Sometimes called the Star Queen or Eagle nebula, this object was made famous by the Hubble Space Telescope image called "The Pillars of Creation". The dark columns that earned this name are visible at the center of the nebula in this image.

M-16 was discovered in 1745 by the French astronomer Jean-Phillipe de Cheseaux.

This nebula contains several active star forming regions including the aforementioned Pillars of Creation. M-16 lies in the Sagittarius Arm of our Milky Way galaxy at a distance of 7,000 light years from Earth.

NOTE: This image was captured on the evening of July 5th, 2024. It is a 2 hour integration of sixty 2 minute exposures through the C-11 at f/6.3 using the Starizona  reducer/corrector 6.3 and the ZWO ASI 2600MC Pro color CMOS camera operating at a temperature of -10 degrees below ambient and binned 1 X 1. Guided and captured using N.I.N.A., combined and color-converted using Maxim DL5. Post processed using PhotoShop CS2, levels & curves, saturation, Croman's Gradient EXterminator, StarShrink, and Carboni's AstroTools. Noise removal and conversion to JPEG format done with NoiseWare.