One Swan... One Thousand Mosquitos:
July 15th was a clear night to shoot M17 The Swan Nebula. I just had to wait until around midnight for moonset. I was set-up, aligned, tracking and had M17 nicely centred. I just had to fine-tune focus, and then start shooting. It was a beautiful night to be outdoors... but unfortunately the mosquito population agreed......I say all that to make this excuse: My focus on this shot isn’t dead-on!.. and it’s not my fault! It’s the mosquitoes fault!! I was absolutely being eaten alive while I tried to obtain perfect focus – I was swatting my arms and head and stamping my feet vigorously! I’m sure I looked like I was performing some ritualistic star dance! Thank goodness it was dark!
I did take time, once I had covered the street light (don’t tell the town of West Lincoln) to sit back and look up. I was given an anti-gravity chair for father’s day so I can lay back and star gaze - it's awesome! It is so overwhelming, when you look up this time of year... the Milky Way sprawled overhead. What a privileged perspective we have! In Psalm 17 David looks up to God and says “I am praying to you because I know you will answer, O God. Bend down and listen as I pray. Show me your unfailing love in wonderful ways. (Ps 17:6-7 NLT)... God is the amazing and powerful creator of the whole universe, yet he is always ready to bend down and listen to our simplest thoughts!
M17, The Swan Nebula is roughly 6000 light years away and is
guessed to be 15 light years across. We are actually looking at it edge on - Face on it is thought to be up to 40 light years across.
M17 image technical details:
8" Skywatcher Newtonian on NEQ6pro (auto-guided) and
DSLR Canon T3i Camera (Gary Honis Mod)33 light frames x 3 minutes = 99 minutes total exposure @ 1600 iso + (15 darks and 15 flats)
Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and processed in Photoshop CS2 free.
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