Instrument

Celestron C11 @ ~f/10.3 (~2900 mm fl)... shown reduced to 3.04 arcsec / pixel.

Mount

Paramount ME

Camera

SBIG STL-11000 w/ internal filter wheel, AstroDon Filters

Acquisition Data

5/17/2008 to 6/8/2008  Chino Valley... with CCDAutoPilot3

Exposure

SII    150  min. (5 x 30 min. bin 1x1)

Ha    150 min.  (5 x 30 min. bin 1x1)
OIII   240 min   (8 x 30 min. bin 1x1)

Software

CCDSoft, CCDStack, Photoshop CS3 w/ the Fits Liberator plugin and Noel Carboni's actions.

CCDStack to register, normalize, data reject, combine and sharpen.

PhotoShop for the color combine.

Comment

This is an interesting demonstration on how the Luminance channel can control the colors.  Both images use the same file for the color data. 

This false color image was acquired with Ha, SII and OIII filters mapped to the RGB channels respectively. So in these images Red indicates the presence Sulfur, Green Hydrogen and Blue for Oxygen

North is to the bottom.
The Lagoon Nebula (also known as M8 and NGC 6523) is a giant interstellar cloud and HII region, in the constellation Sagittarius. At an estimated distance of 5,200 light-years, the Lagoon is one of only two star-forming nebulae faintly visible to the naked eye from mid-northern latitudes. In binoculars, the Lagoon is a distinct oval cloudlike patch with a definite core, like a pale celestial flower. The nebula has a delicate star cluster superimposed on it, making this one of the leading celestial sights of summer night skies.

Source: Wikipedia