CCD Sky Observatory
Images by Christopher Cappelli
NGC 6611 - The Eagle Nebula
NGC 6611 is an active region of star formation located approximately 7,000 light years from Earth located in the constellation Serpens.
The data for this image was acquired on September 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th, 2008 at the CCD Sky Observatory in Redlands, California, USA. The final image seen here represents the combination of 3 hours and 40 minutes of exposures (6 x 20-minute Ha (3nm) exposures and 5 x 20-minute OIII (3nm) exposures) taken with a Takahashi FSQ-106ED telescope and a QSI 532wsi camera cooled to -10° C.
The two sets of sub-exposures (Ha and OIII) were processed using CCDStack and Photoshop CS. The images were calibrated, registered, normalized, STD sigma reject and combined in CCDStack. The two resulting images (Ha and OIII) were then brought into Photoshop for final processing. Noel Carboni's Astronomy Tools for Photoshop were used for local contrast enhancement, and to synthesize a green channel from the red channel (Ha) and the blue channel (OIII). Some additional processing was also done in Photoshop to balance the color and contrast of the image.
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