M16: Capturing the Eagle Nebula Under Challenging Conditions
This past summer, I had the opportunity to capture the majestic Eagle Nebula, also known as M16. The captures took place on June 25th and July 8th, 2025, under less-than-ideal conditions.
The Setup:
- Telescope: Celestron Edge HD8
- Mount: EQ6R Pro
- Camera: Canon EOS R 10
- Integration Time: A little over 1 hour
- Guiding: None
- Filters: None
The Challenges:
My second capture session was particularly challenging. I was shooting between thunderstorms, dealing with super high humidity, and abysmal seeing conditions. To top it off, the moon was almost full, washing out much of the fainter details.
Image:
Overcoming Obstacles and Learning:
During post-processing, I noticed some "walking noise" in the images. This is a new term for me, and I've been researching it. It seems that a new and upgraded mount, while solving some previous issues, has also introduced new ones like this. Dithering and guiding are potential solutions I'm looking into.
My mount can handle 1 to 1.5 minute exposures when polar aligned perfectly. However, I've found that longer exposures often result in more reject frames due to satellites and aircraft. For this reason, I've capped my maximum exposure at 30 seconds.
Interestingly, I didn't notice this "walking noise" phenomenon with my previous alt/az mount, even under similar circumstances. While that mount did exhibit target rotation after a few hours, the noise was manageable with processing. With the new mount, and now that the weather has been (relatively) better, this persistent noisy streaking has become more apparent.
I'm eager to learn more about guiding, but I want to solidify my understanding of the rest of the astrophotography process before diving into new software and setups. It's a journey of continuous learning and improvement!
