The Eagle Nebula (Messier 16)

It is located in the constellation Serpens, approximately 7,000 light-years from Earth. The most famous part of this nebula is the so-called "Pillars of Creation," massive structures of interstellar gas and dust that became icons of modern astronomy thanks to images from the Hubble Space Telescope. This region is an active star-forming area where intense radiation from young, hot stars gradually evaporates and shapes the surrounding clouds. Thanks to its beauty and scientific significance, it belongs among the most frequently photographed deep-sky objects.

Acquisition

In the first half of the year, roughly around March, I started on this target the moment it became available in the sky. I captured it from mid-March to the beginning of May on nights when the weather was nice.

More precisely on these nights: April 19, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, and May 1, 9.

Once again, everything was captured using N.I.N.A and PHD2.

Processing

Unfortunately, I am personally not satisfied with the processing; this is partly due to poor acquisition and choosing the wrong exposure length—the main pillar is overexposed against the background and therefore blends together. The nearby stars didn't help much either, as they are also overexposed and poorly focused. I personally struggled with them during processing and didn't manage to create anything nice out of it.

Stacking was done traditionally in DSS and processing in PixInsight. The Starless image was created via Starnet again.