Barnard's Loop (Sharpless 2-276)

A wide view of a section of the beautiful constellation of Orion, imaged in mid Summer in the Southern Hemisphere. Photographed with a standard (unmodified) mid-range Nikon D7000 DSLR camera and Nikkor 60mm f/2.8 ED lens (stopped down to f/4 for optimal optical performance).

 

This widefield view around Orion's Belt includes several beautiful Deep Sky Objects including The Great Nebula in Orion (M42), The Horsehead Nebula (IC434) and Barnard's Loop.

 

About Barnard's Loop:

Barnard's Loop (also known as Sharpless 2-276) is a huge Nebular shell, about 1,600 light-years away in the constellation Orion. It envelops a large part of the Orion Complex. Barnard's Loop is thought to have been formed by a series of Supernovae that occurred two to three million years ago. The ionized shell is part of an even larger molecular Hydrogen cloud, and is kept luminous by a group of hot young stars.

 

About the image:

This is the first test image that I shot with my iOptron SkyTracker Pro. I decided to get a SkyTracker so that I can use a regular old camera and lens to photograph wide angle shots of the sky while I'm busy imaging with my Telescope. It is a fairly inexpensive way to do long exposures of the night sky with standard photographic equipment that you already have.

 

Location:

The rural dark skies of the African Bushveld in the Waterberg, Limpopo Province, South Africa (on a very warm Summer's evening).

 

About the Star Colors:

You will notice that star colors differ from red, orange and yellow, to blue. This is an indication of the temperature of the star's Nuclear Fusion process. This is determined by the size and mass of the star, and the stage of its life cycle. In short, the blue stars are hotter, and the red ones are cooler.

 

Gear:

iOptron SkyTracker Pro.

iOptron Counterweight Kit.

Manfrotto 055PRO Tripod.

Manfrotto 486RC2 Ball Head.

Nikon D7000 DSLR (Unmodified).

Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8D ED Lens.

Hahnel Giga T Pro II Wireless Timer Remote.

 

Tech:

Lights/Subs:

14 x 60 sec. ISO 3200 NEF Files (f/4).

Calibration Frames:

40 x Bias

30 x Darks

Pre-Processing and Linear workflow in PixInsight,

and finished in Photoshop.

 

Astrometry Info:

View the Annotated Sky Map for this Astrophoto.

RA, Dec center: 84.7497748101, -2.68699703478 degrees

Orientation: 10.6655683104 deg E of N

Pixel scale: 38.7303715915 arcsec/pixel

View this image in the World Wide Telescope.

 

Martin

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