GALLERY
Southern galaxy NGC 1398 • The Swan Nebula • Rosette Nebula • Pacman Nebula • Stunning aurora • Moon over Mount Etna • compiled by Mark Armstrong.
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Barred beauty
Swanning around
Nik Szymanek says…
Anyone lucky enough to visit more southerly locations for a summer imaging trip will be familiar with the beautiful sky in and around the constellation of Sagittarius. Here in the UK, it’s a horizon hugger for sure so offers extremely limited imaging time and somewhat-compromised results due to the thicker atmosphere (air mass). This is a shame as some of the deep sky’s best objects lurk here, such as the naked-eye Lagoon Nebula (M8) and other bright denizens such as the Eagle Nebula (M16) in the neighbouring constellation of Serpens.
Nearby we can also find the splendid Swan (or Omega) Nebula (M17), an incredibly photogenic target as shown in this month’s winning entry by acclaimed astro-imager Warren Keller from data acquired with a 24-inch (61 cm) PlaneWave telescope at the Stan Watson Observatory South in Chile. This object was always a favourite of mine when working with slide film emulsion (remember that?) as the high surface brightness recorded well on what was a very inefficient medium. Modern day digital imagers get better results using narrowband SHO filters and the Hubble palette.
M17 delivers a slightly different view from the traditional Hubble palette which I think is due to the very bright oxygen-III component, giving the central area a cool turquoise colour that contrasts nicely with the extended red nebulosity fanning away for a considerable distance from the Swan’s body.
The incredible structure throughout the nebula responds well to deconvolution processing and, as is so often the case, the SHO palette delivers a wonderful three-dimensional appearance, especially where the blue filamentary oxygen-III structure flows near to the complimentary red hydrogen-alpha gas and dust pillars.