M8 & M20 – The Lagoon & Trifid Nebulas
M20 Trifid Nebula
M8 Lagoon Nebula
The M8 and M20 Nebulas
I was pretty pleased with how this M8 and M20 took this time for me. Each year I have tried this target but it’s very low for me in the southern sky and using the RASA I was able to get some data over several evenings in RGB and SHO. This was the first time using the RGB Deep Sky filters from Astronomik and very pleased with how they turned out.
Equipment
Telescope: Celestron RASA 11 (620mm focal @ f/2.2)
Filters: Astronomik MaxFR 50x50mm Square SHO
Main Camera: ZWO ASI 6200mm-pro Monochrome
Tilt & BackFocus Adjuster: ASG Photon Cage
Mount: iOptron CEM 120EC
Guide Scope: William Optics 50mm Uniguide
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI 290mm-mini
Location
Location: Pendleton, Oregon
Observatory: NexDome 2.4m Automated
Bortle: 3
Long & Lat: 45.67N, -118.79 W
Shoot Parameters
Date: September 6 – 20th, 2023
R: 31 x 30 seconds
G: 38 x 30 seconds
B: 35 x 30 seconds
Ha: 25 x 300 seconds
Oiii: 17 x 300 seconds
Sii: 14 x 300 seconds
Total Integration time ~5.5 hrs
Calibration Bias: 20
Calibration Dark: 20
Calibration Flats: 20 for each filter
Gain: 100
Cooling: -10
Processing Software: Captured with NINA, Stacked with Astro Pixel Processor, Processed in PixInsight