I hauled my telescope to an island on Lake James, IN to capture the Lagoon Nebula

A little extra effort is always worth it to get the shots you want! In this case, that meant packing up the gear, loading it onto a boat, and taking it over to a small island on Lake James in Indiana. We have a cottage on the lake, but the huge trees that surround the whole property make imaging impossible. Luckily the lake had a few small islands, one of which was leased to our neighbor who let me set it up there for the night. This instantly became one of my favorite photos to date.

With limited light pollution (aside from the moon for
the first couple of hours ) I was able to capture this with only 21 exposures. 7-H, 7-O,7-S…all 300 seconds.

From there, it was pixinsight tried and true – BlurX, GraXpert, NoiseX, EZ Soft Stretch, PPP, StarNet, Curves Xformarion, Star Reduction

⚙️ Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro
📸 @zwoastro ASI2600MM Pro/ASI 120mm mini
🔭 William Optics Fluorostar 120
📅 Captured 8/30/25
🖥️ PixInsight
🎨 Adobe Photoshop
📍Angola, Indiana
💡 Bortle