{"id":1480,"date":"2024-09-21T14:21:21","date_gmt":"2024-09-21T20:21:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/albersheim.com\/wordpress\/?post_type=blog_post&p=1480"},"modified":"2024-09-21T14:22:08","modified_gmt":"2024-09-21T20:22:08","slug":"a-lagoon-in-the-south","status":"publish","type":"blog_post","link":"https:\/\/albersheim.com\/wordpress\/blog-post\/a-lagoon-in-the-south\/","title":{"rendered":"A Lagoon in the South"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

 Part of a 15-panel mosaic\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This image is part of a larger project that is a 5×3 mosaic that includes the Lagoon (M8) and Trifid (M20) Nebulae. The work will likely continue into next year since these nebulae are so low in the sky and for a short amount of time in the northern hemisphere at this time of year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I like how this turned out, and is definitely an improvement on the image of the off-center and unprocessed image I posted on May 23. This image is comprised of 1070 10-second subs captured using the ZWO Seestar S50 in Alt-Az mode with a 50% overlap over 4 evenings in Bottle 6 skies. I used Stellarium to determine the center star of the mosaic, then AstroMosaic (ruuth.xyz<\/a>) to determine the correct number of panels and overlap, Astrometry to determine the center coordinates of panels for re-shooting, and the Seestar-alp python script and Seestar_alp front-end running on a Raspberry Pi 4B to control the Seestar remotely. I used Siril for Background Extraction, Photometric Color Calibration, and Generalized Hyperbolic Stretch, and Color Saturation, Topaz for Noise Extermination and de-blurring, then Photoshop for star reduction and finalizing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Description, Distance, and Measurement<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lagoon Nebula<\/strong> (catalogued as Messier 8<\/strong> or M8<\/strong>) is a giant interstellar cloud in the constellation Sagittarius. It is classified as an emission nebula. The nebula contains a number of dark, collapsing clouds of protostellar material. It also includes a funnel-like structure caused by a hot O-type star that emits ultraviolet light, heating and ionizing gases on the surface of the nebula. The nebula also contains at its centre a structure known as the Hourglass (so named by John Herschel). The Lagoon Nebula is estimated to be between 4,000\u20136,000 light-years away from the Earth and has a dimension of 110 by 50 light years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

History<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lagoon Nebula was discovered by Giovanni Hodierna before 1654 and is one of only two star-forming nebulae faintly visible to the eye from mid-northern latitudes. Seen with binoculars, it appears as a distinct cloud-like patch with a definite core. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"M8-Lagoon
M8-Lagoon Nebula<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 Part of a 15-panel mosaic\u2026 This image is part of a larger project that is a 5×3 mosaic that includes the Lagoon<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"tags":[],"blog-category":[],"class_list":["post-1480","blog_post","type-blog_post","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/albersheim.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog_post\/1480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/albersheim.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog_post"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/albersheim.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/blog_post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albersheim.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albersheim.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/albersheim.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albersheim.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1480"},{"taxonomy":"blog-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albersheim.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog-category?post=1480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}