M 8 and M 20 - The Lagoon and Trifid Nebulas
From the author of Welcome to the Universe in 3D
02:00 EDT July 9, 2026.
Seestar S30 Pro at f/5 in Equatorial Mode.
188 minute stack of 20-second subexposures executed using the M8_M20 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 saved the updated fits file and used the GraxPert app to correct for the gradient in the background.
I saved the improved file as a tif file and then loaded it in
Photoshop were I tinkered with "Curves" and "Color Saturation" to adjust the brightness and colorization.
Then, I opened this updated tif file into PixInsight where I used
StarXTerminator to generate two tif files: one with just the stars and the other with just the nebulosity.
Next, I used the Topaz Denoise AI app to sharpen up the starless
image.
Then, I loaded the star image and the improved starless image into Photoshop and combined them back together.
That's pretty much it.