2016 August 3 ~ The Milky Way in Cepheus, Cygnus & Cassiopeia [WITH LABELS]

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Photographed at Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada

(285 km by road north of Toronto)

* Temperature 17° C.

 

* Total exposure time: 6 minutes.

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Description:

 

High in the northern hemisphere summer sky our home galaxy, the Milky Way, runs through the constellations Cassiopeia (left side), Cepheus (centre) and Cygnus (right side).

 

This area of the sky is riddled with glowing red clouds of hydrogen gas, numerous star clusters, and areas of dark foreground gas that obscures the light of millions of stars beyond.

 

Just a little above and to the right of centre is the bright circular red gas cloud IC 1396. For a close-up view of this nebula made with a 400 mm lens in August 2015, click here:

www.flickr.com/photos/97587627@N06/19929294304

 

One of the most distinctive gas clouds is the aptly named "North America Nebula", at bottom right. For a close-up view of this nebula made with a 400 mm lens, click here:

www.flickr.com/photos/97587627@N06/19933485213

 

For a version of this photo WITHOUT labels, click on the LEFT side of your screen, or click here:

www.flickr.com/photos/97587627@N06/28165947613

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Technical information:

 

Sigma 50 mm f/1.4 DG HSM ART lens on Nikon D810a camera body, mounted on Astrophysics 1100GTO equatorial mount with a Kirk Enterprises ball head

 

Six stacked frames; each frame:

50 mm focal length

ISO 3200; 1 minute exposure at f/4; unguided

(with LENR - long exposure noise reduction)

 

Subframes registered in RegiStar;

Stacked and processed in Photoshop CS6 (brightness, contrast, levels, colour balance, colour desaturation)

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Done