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Archive 2015 · Pillars of Creation, amateur style

  
 
StarNut
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Pillars of Creation, amateur style


Hi,

I present here several views of the Eagle Nebula. This field contains most of the Eagle Nebula, which consists of an open star cluster (catalogued as M16), and an emission nebula (catalogued as IC4703). At the center of this field are the gas clouds made famous in the Hubble photo entitled "Pillars of Creation." Another piece of this image that has been imaged by Hubble is the almost-horizontal spire to the left of the Pillars of Creation; this feature is 9.5 light years long. These photos are 40% (lateral measure) of the full-resolution my camera produces. As a special bonus , The last photo is a set of three, so you can compare mine with the Hubble efforts, at the same image scale. On the left is mine (a full resolution crop), then the 1995 Hubble image, followed by a recent (2014) Hubble image.

These are part of a large star-forming region, located in the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way. There are a number of what look like black blobs floating around in the field; astronomers think that these (so-called "Bok globules") are "protostars," and may congeal into stars in time. There is a lot of cold hydrogen gas in this field, showing up in this set of photos as the dark clouds (dark because they don't allow light to pass through them; the stars you see superimposed onto them are between them and us). This region is about 7,000 light years away, and shines at approximately apparent magnitude 8. The cluster is estimated to be 5.5 million years old, and the nebula a bit older.

The first image is taken with the same filter set as the Hubble used for its famous photos; my telescope is a tad smaller than the Hubble, and I have miles and miles of atmosphere to peer through, so I can't quite get the same detail as Hubble (and these aren't full resolution images). The second photo is in "true" color, predominantly red because of the hydrogen alpha (ionized hydrogen) emissions that dominate the light emissions in the area. The third photo is grayscale, made of 60% of Ha-filtered data and 40% OIII (doubly ionized oxygen), included just because I think it's pretty.

There are about 48 hours of light frame images integrated into these photos, taken over a period of three months (weather in South Australia has been horrible).

Telescope: RC Optical Systems 14.5 inch Ritchey–Chrétien carbon fiber truss telescope, with ion-milled optics
Camera: SBIG STL11000M with internal color filter wheel (Astrodon Type II filter set)
Mount: Bisque Paramount ME German Equatorial Mount.

Enjoy!

Mark

http://www.de-regt.com/Astronomy/Eagle.40.Hubble.jpg

http://www.de-regt.com/Astronomy/Eagle.40.HaRGB.jpg

http://www.de-regt.com/Astronomy/Eagle.40.Ha.jpg

http://www.de-regt.com/Astronomy/PillarsTrio.jpg

Edited on Sep 24, 2015 at 04:40 PM · View previous versions



Sep 23, 2015 at 10:51 AM
dbehrens
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Pillars of Creation, amateur style


AWESOME!!
Dave



Sep 23, 2015 at 12:14 PM
stanparker
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Pillars of Creation, amateur style


Incredible stuff, very impressive.


Sep 23, 2015 at 05:13 PM
killersnowman
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Pillars of Creation, amateur style


Bravo sir Bravo. Stunning images


Sep 23, 2015 at 11:38 PM
StarNut
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Pillars of Creation, amateur style


Thanks!


Sep 24, 2015 at 09:41 AM
phoenix7gtm
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Pillars of Creation, amateur style


This is just incredible! Words fail me.

~George.



Sep 24, 2015 at 09:59 AM
aubsxc
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Pillars of Creation, amateur style


Magnificent. The reality that is our universe far exceeds anything our minds can imagine.

Thank you for sharing.



Sep 24, 2015 at 03:30 PM
lighthound
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Pillars of Creation, amateur style


These are absolutely stunning! I had no idea this could be viewed from earth with the right gear.
I wonder why it took the Hubble to open the door for us to see this beautiful formation with terrestrial telescopes?

Fantastic work! And thank you for the backstory.

Dave



Sep 24, 2015 at 03:54 PM
StarNut
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Pillars of Creation, amateur style


Thanks again!

lighthound wrote:
These are absolutely stunning! I had no idea this could be viewed from earth with the right gear.
I wonder why it took the Hubble to open the door for us to see this beautiful formation with terrestrial telescopes?

Fantastic work! And thank you for the backstory.

Dave


The large nebula of which this is a part was identified hundreds of years ago, and can be easily seen with a very modest telescope in dark skies. The small part that constitutes the Pillars of Creation probably would not have been known until they started photographing the sky with large telescopes, early-to-mid 20th century.

I think that the Hubble photograph, with its vibrant, other-worldly colors, showing in unprecedented detail a stellar nursery, and the catchy name "Pillars of Creation," combined to catch the public's imagination, so that this little piece of our galaxy became iconic.




Sep 24, 2015 at 06:21 PM
Tom Nevesely
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Pillars of Creation, amateur style


That is so cool! Thanks for sharing this.


Sep 24, 2015 at 07:30 PM





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