M8 is the opening act for Nebula season, so I grabbed it last night. The light took 5,200 years to reach my camera. The massive stars embedded within the nebula give off enormous amounts of ultraviolet radiation, ionizing the gas and causing it to shine. It is low on the horizon for most of the United States and therefor subject to atmospheric turbulence. For Tucson it is low but not too bad (34 images rejected for turbulence).,210 frames of 30 seconds = 1 hour 45 minutes of exposure.
ASTAP for plate solving, mount sync, and frame stacking, Siril for histogram stretching and color verification, StarNet for star equalization, DarkTable for final composition and copyright.
Simply amazing!
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