Rho Ophiuchi with a 135mm lens

First light with the Samyang 135mm f/2!

 

XSS J16271-2423, better known as Rho Ophiuchi, lies at a distance of about 400 light-years from us. It is a binary star system and the closest stellar nursery to Earth. It surrounds the huge orange star Antares.

 

I’ve been wanting to capture Rho Ophiuchi from up close since imaging this object with the 50mm lens. The smallest telescope we have, the Meade 70mm APO, would be great if using our full-frame camera, but it would be a tiny bit too tight! Because of that, I recently bought a 135mm f/2 lens, just so I could get a closer view of Rho Ophiuchi.

I have to say, I was blown away by how crisp the stars were all over the field of view even with the aperture wide open, wow! The image below was taken at f/2!

 

I am happy with the results, although I wish I used an autoguider because the stars do look a tiny bit elongated when zoomed in.

 

You can learn more about the capture here, see it in higher resolution, more tips, and attempts with different lenses: www.galactic-hunter.com/post/rho-ophiuchi

Please follow galactic.hunter on Instagram for much more space images!

 

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Done