M 18
and
M 17 (The Swan Nebula)
and
M 24
From the author of Welcome to the Universe in 3D
M 18 is the small cluster of stars just to the left of the middle of this picture.
01:50 EDT July 20, 2026.
Seestar S30 Pro at f/5 in Equatorial Mode.
177 minute stack of 20-second subexposures executed using the M18 Plan.
Here's some details about the image processing:
I loaded the stacked fits file into PixInsight.
In PixInsight I used NoiseXTerminator and then BlurXTerminator to improve things a
bit.
I then used StarXTerminator to make two images, one with the stars removed and one with the stars.
I saved those two images as tif files and I used Photoshop to
recombine them with the stars significantly less bright than they were originally.
Lastly, I used AutoTone and ColSat to brighten up the nebulosity.