The Eagle Nebula, M16, hasn’t made it particularly easy for me this September.
From my observing spot in Emden, it is already sitting very low in the sky and almost directly towards the city centre. By the time the sky gets dark enough, there isn’t much time left before M16 disappears behind a nearby roof.
So instead of one long imaging session, I’ve been collecting whatever time I could get during those short evening windows. Altogether, the image now contains 42 minutes of exposure time, using 15-second exposures with the DWARF 3.
M16 is a huge star-forming region and, of course, home to the famous Pillars of Creation. At this image scale they are only a tiny part of a much larger structure, and I actually like seeing the nebula that way – surrounded by all those faint clouds and darker lanes.
Considering how low it was, the light pollution towards the city and the roof waiting patiently to swallow it every evening, I’m quite happy with what I managed to capture.
Sometimes you don’t get the perfect conditions. You just use the little window the sky gives you.