M20 Trifid Nebula

Image Title: M20 Trifid Nebula

Copyright: Scott Horton

Date image was taken: July 18, 2026

Location: Backyard Berthoud Colorado

Data Acquisition Method: Personal Telescope Setup

Description and Details: My first summer target of the "26 summer season. Ive always wanted to do a long FL acquisition on M20 with clean core details. M20 is a beautiful star nursery full of rich emission, birght refelction and contrasted by dark dust. Its also full of fascinating phenomea such as HH399 outflow

Completely unnecessary to shoot a target like this in narrowband, but i felt I was able to more control higher contrast color and luminance details in the emission portions of the nebula while keeping the refelction and stars LRGB.

Final Processing HOOLRGB
Total integration: 13h
Integration per filter:
- Lum/Clear: 4h (48 × 300")
- R: 1h (12 × 300")
- G: 1h (12 × 300")
- B: 1h (12 × 300")
- Hα: 3h (18 × 600")
- OIII: 3h (18 × 600")

Equipment:
- Telescope: Celestron EdgeHD 11"
- Camera: ZWO ASI2600MM Pro
- Mount: Sky-Watcher CQ350 Pro
- Filters: Antlia 3nm Narrowband H-alpha 2", Antlia 3nm Narrowband Oxygen III 2", Antlia Dark Blue 2", Antlia Dark Green 2", Antlia Dark Luminance 2", Antlia Dark Red 2"
- Accessories: PrimaLuceLab ARCO 2" rotator, PrimaLuceLab EAGLE6S, PrimaLuceLab ESATTO 2" LP low profile robotic focuser, ZWO EFW 7 x 2″
-Guiding: ZWO OAG-L, ASI174mm
- Software: Adobe Photoshop, Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight, Stefan Berg Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy (N.I.N.A. / NINA)

Full resolution, plate solved image on Astrobin:
https://app.astrobin.com/i/0zjqze

Name: Scott Horton

Website or Facebook Profile: http://app.astrobin.com/i/0zjqze