Every dot in this image is a star.

Messier 7 is an open star cluster in the core of the Milky Way, so it’s an incredibly dense star field compared to most of my other astro photos. If you’re in dark enough skies it’s possible to see the cluster with the naked eye in the summer (it’s also great to view through binoculars). I wish I had gotten more time on this to bring out the dark nebula before some haze came in, but I’m still extremely pleased with these results for just 25 minutes of exposure time. Captured on June 25th, 2020 from a Bortle 4 zone.

Places where I host my other images:

Flickr | Instagram

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Equipment:

• TPO 6" F/4 Imaging Newtonian

• Orion Sirius EQ-G

• ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro

• Skywatcher Quattro Coma Corrector

• ZWO EFW 8x1.25"/31mm

• Astronomik LRGB+CLS Filters- 31mm

• Astrodon 31mm Ha 5nm, Oiii 3nm, Sii 5nm

• Agena 50mm Deluxe Straight-Through Guide Scope

• ZWO ASI-120MC for guiding

• Moonlite Autofocuser

Acquisition: 24.5 minutes (Camera at Unity Gain, -15°C)

• Lum- 25x30"

• Red- 8x30""

• Green- 9x30"

• Blue- 7x30"

• Darks- 30

• Flats- 30 per filter

Capture Software:

• Captured using N.I.N.A. and PHD2 for guiding and dithering.

PixInsight Processing:

• BatchPreProcessing

• StarAlignment

• Blink

• ImageIntegration

• DynamicCrop

• AutomaticBackgroundExtraction 2X

• Luminance:

• TGV/MMT Noise Reduction

• ArcsinhStretch

• HistogramTransformation

• RGB:

• LinearFit to green

• ChannelCombination

• AutomaticBackgroundExtraction

• PhotometricColorCalibration

• SCNR

• HSVRepair

• ArcsinhStretch

• HistogramTransformation

• LRGBCombination with Lum

• CurveTransformations

• HistogramTransformation

• UnsharpMask

• MorphologicalTransformation to reduce star sizes

• Invert>SCNR>Invert

• More Curves

• Annotation