A summer 2024 Eagle Nebula, M 16, with the Pillars of Creation was my long exposure project for this summer. Over 24 hours of total exposure captured over 11 nights. Captured in 290 five minute narrow-band one-shot-color images. My goal was to show both the faint nebulosity around the eagle as well as detail in the bright pillars region in the center. Poor weather in Texas this summer, rain, thin high clouds, and Saharan dust all added to the light pollution of my Bortle 7 city skies from my garden here in Austin and made me doubtful about using so much telescope time on this one project. The payoff was worth it. I'll definitely be doing more long exposure projects in the future. The image links to higher resolution versions including the full 33 mega-pixel original.

WO RedCat 250/51mm, L-Ultimate dual NB filter, ASI533 MC camera, ASIAIR Plus controller, SW AZ-EQ5 mount. Processed in PixInsight: drizzle stacked, Auto DBE, then SPCC, RC-Astro Noise/Blur/StarXTerminator plugins, 3 stages of stretching & deconvolution. Final exp and crop in Photoshop.

Here is a 100% center crop of the Pillars of Creation:

For the curious, this is the original stack of 24.3 hours of data with only color correction, and the PixInsight automatic STF stretch.