The Lagoon Nebula
The first real test for my new "Full Spectrum" modified T3i Canon DSLR Camera!M8 The Lagoon Nebula was captured early morning of June 15th at our local RASC Observatory. Myself and a friend imaged M8 all night long (once the moon set at midnight) despite the heavy dew, fog and intermittent cloud. Much time was lost, but a total of 75 minutes of exposure were stacked to create this image.
The Lagoon Nebula is 4000-6000 light years away and measures 110 light years across. The features of M8 that intrigue me the most are the little black clouds called "Bok Globules". They are dark collapsing clouds of proto-stellar material and they contain the right ingredients to hatch a new star. Wikipedia has more info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bok_globule
I keep a photo album at home of my space images. Each image is captioned with the Psalm number that coincides with the objects Messier number... So for M8, here is the verses that jumped off the page from Ps.8:
Psalm 8: 3-6 (NLT)
When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers— the moon and the stars you set in place—what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?
Yet you made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor. You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority.
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| 25 subs x 3minutes = 75 minutes total exposure at 1600iso - Stacked with DSS and processed with Photoshop CS2free |
