I shot this image of the Lagoon and Trifid nebula during my stay at Kiripotib in Namibia.
Beforehand I didn’t expect to much of this region, since I’m using a non-modified DSLR (the D600) and I thought this area to be pretty ‘cliche’. However, when I saw the first results I got quite enthusiastic; this was going to be an awesome image!
Especially seeing the faint blue nebulosity around Trifid got me excited; I didn’t know and hadn’t seen Trifid like this! Normally you basically see the ‘two round blobs, one red and one blue’, but now a lot of faint reflection nebulosity showed up all around Trifid.
So I decided to give this target quite some exposure time; Almost 10 hours in total (580 minutes)
The second night I did a quick test with several exposure times and ISO settings and according to the analysis of PixInsight the 10min ISO400 was the best setting in terms of SNR and FWHM, so I decided to continue shooting at ISO400.
I must say I’m really pleased with the result, as this is such a beautiful and interesting field of view. So much going on and different types of objects!
Due to the outstanding seeing the details are really sharp, as you can see in the following crops:
M20, M8 and IC1274 acquisition details
Date: July 13, 14 and 15
Location: Kiripotib, Namibia
Optics: APM 107/700 triplet with Riccardi 0.75 reducer
Mount: Fornax 51
Camera: Unmodified Nikon D600
Guiding: Lacerta MGEN
Exposures: 38x5min ISO800, 20×10 ISO400, 18x10min ISO400
