M-16 is a star cluster with nebulosity located in the Constellation of Serpens. It lies in the Sagittarius Arm of our Milky Way galaxy at a distance of approximately 7,000 Light Years. It was discovered in 1745 by Phillipe de Cheseaux.
This image was captured on the evening of July 5, 2024 (New Moon) and is a 2 hour integration of sixty two minute exposures through the Celestron C-11 SCT, using the Starizona 6.3 Reduce/Corrector III and the ZWO ASI 2600MC Pro 1 shot color CMOS camera, operating at -10 degrees below ambient temperature and binned 1 X 1. Image acquired, guided and exposed using N.I.N.A. The 60 light frames were calibrated using a master dark frame combined from 15 two minute darks. Calibration, color conversion and log stretch done in PixInsight, using Dynamic Background Extraction, Background Neutralization, Spectrophotometric Color Calibration and Generalized Hyperbolic Stretch. Post processed in PhotoShop CS2, using levels, curve, saturation, StarShrink, and AstroTools. Filtered and converted to JPEG format using NoiseWare.