M16

The Eagle Nebula is located in the constellation Serpens, M16 is actually a young open cluster. The most famous image is that of the Hubble telescope called the Pillars of Creation. The rest is a gas cloud in the shape of an Eagle (IC 4703) which is often confused with M16 which is actually the leg in the center of the image.

This is an emission nebula. This means that the young stars that are born within it and which release very energetic radiation come to ionize the hydrogen cloud constituting the nebula which then makes its structure visible.

The eagle's leg, which corresponds to the famous image of the Hubble telescope, are large columns of gas that host the new stars. The gas, when it is sufficiently dense, ends up collapsing on itself and thus gives birth to the new stellar bodies.

Although they look small in the image, these three small pillars of the leg are actually three light years long.

The image presented is the result of a mix between a color image without filter, captured using the 533mc pro camera from zwo, and an image with the L-eXtreme filter from Optolong. This allows to better highlight the different structures of the gas with its more or less dense areas. It is also more visible this way than only without filter. Indeed, the human eye is not able to discern certain wavelengths, the Eagle Nebula appears pale pink and seems much less detailed.

Equipment used:
- Skywatcher 80ed Evostar
- ZWO 533mc pro
- ZWO 120mm mini
- EQM-35 Pro
- Asiair plus
- EFW
- EAF
- OAG
- Stacked with Siril and PixInsight
- Processed with PixInsight
- Finished with Lightroom