View allAll Photos Tagged RhoOphiuchi
Spring is taking it very slow this year in the Swiss Alps. 2021 has brought Switzerland the coldest spring since 1987, with temperatures at least 2.5°C below long term average. The southern location of the jet stream over Europe is responsible for the cold weather here, while it also brings record high temperatures to Western Siberia.
The cold air causes lots of clouds and precipitation and makes for few opportunities to do astrophotography. Fortunately, the grey weather doesn't affect the beautiful colors of the spring sky, if the clouds decide to part.
EXIF
Canon EOS 6D, astro-modified
Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L @ 50mm
iOptron SkyTracker Pro
15 x 90s @ ISO1600, tracked
Foreground:
5 x 90s @ ISO3200
The Rho Ophiuchi area was imaged from a dark sky location outside of Captain Cook, HI. My tracking was a bit off due to Polaris being low on the horizon and behind a tree. With my small travel tripod, there is a bit of trailing in the corners. The image was made of 35 fifteen second exposures taken with A Canon R6 Mark II and a Canon 200 mm f/2.8L II lens. (ISO 6400, f/3.2)
During my May trip to Italy, I had just one night on the Gargano peninsula and it was grey and very rainy all day long. I therefore decided to have a good dinner and call it a night. While walking from the beachfront restaurant back to my hotel, I noticed that some stars were starting to show and I decided to drive to this spot and give it a try. To my surprise the sky was absolutely clear by the time I arrived.
The coasts of Italy are beautiful, but extremely challenging for nightscapes, because of a crazy amount of light pollution. The Gargano peninsula is one of the darker areas, but the line of sight to the southeast, where the Milky Way rises, is exactly along the Apulian coast with many brightly lit towns.
It therefore was one of the rare occasions where I used my light pollution filter and I doubt I would have been able to capture any decent Milk without it.
Prints available:
EXIF
- Canon EOS 6D, astro modified
- Sigma 35mm f/1.4 ART
- iOptron Skytracker Pro
- nachtlicht° light pollution filter
Sky
3 x 90s @ ISO 1600 / f/2.8, tracked
Foreground
3 x 50s @ISO1600 f/1.4
I hope you are not yet fed up with my Bisti shots, as there are still quite a few in the pipeline...
This was one was the first "classic" Milky Way shot during my second night at Bisti in April. It was taken shortly after my previous punlished image flic.kr/p/VCpfKg
On the lower left the last clouds are disappearing over the horizon, while the core of our galaxy rises with all its glory over the alien looking Bisti wilderness.
- Astro-modified Canon EOS 6D
- Samyang 24mm f/1.4
- iOptron SkyTracker
- Low Level Lighting (LLL) with 2 LED lights
Foreground:
- 5 x 60s @ ISO 800 from fixed tripod
- median stacked in PS
Sky:
- 10 x 60s @ ISO 800 tracked
- stacked with fitswork4
Thanks for all your faves and comments!
Prints available:
During my recent flight to Sao Paulo, I was able to
capture the rising Milky Way from one of the darkest places on earth: At 36'000 feet over the South Atlantic.
The image was captured from the flight deck of a Boeing 777-300ER and shows the Milky Way from Sagittatius on to Puppis. The dust clouds of the southern hemisphere Milky Way are an impressive sight, while the rising planet Mars is just a tiny orange dot on the horizon on the left, below the Lagoon Nebula.
Some prominent astronomical objects visible are: the Large Sagittarius Star Cloud, Dark Horse Nebula, Rho Ophichui region, Coalsack Nebula and the constellation Crux and the Eta Carinae Nebula...
As a lucky bonus, a meteor died a fiery death on the upper right of the image in Scorpius.
Prints available: ralf-rohner.pixels.com
Equipment & EXIF:
Canon EOS 6D, H-alpha astro modified
Samyang 24mm f/1.4 @ f/2
Mount: Boeing 777-300ER
Panorama of 4 images in landscape orientation, each a stack of 15 x 5s @ ISO 12800
Nikon d810a
50mm
ISO 8000
f/2.5
Foreground: 12 x 20 seconds
Sky: 51 x 30 seconds
iOptron SkyTracker
Hoya Red Intensifier filter
This is a 63 shot panorama of the Milky Way setting over a lone gum tree on a farm in Cadoux, 2.5 hours north east of Perth in Western Australia.
This is easily the closest lone tree I have ever captured on any panorama, sitting just 15 metres away from me so it looks quite huge in this pano! I believe this is a canola farm but this was taken back in June so the canola is very young here, just sprouting I assume. I will have to come back when they are in full bloom in August or September, well that's if my recently injured back allows me to, it's stubbornly refusing to heal.
As usual with the Milky Way in this orientation, both the Carina Nebula (far left) and North America Nebula (far right) can be seen just above the horizon with the core on its way to setting towards the west. The light pollution is from the nearby Wheatbelt town of Wongan Hills.
Nikon d5500
35mm
ISO 4000
f/2.8
Foreground: 12 x 25 seconds
Sky: 35 x 30 seconds
iOptron SkyTracker
This is a 47 shot panorama of the Milky Way setting over a derelict farmhouse at Gillingarra, about 2 hours north of Perth in Western Australia.
This old farmhouse had its roof intact when I scouted it on google maps but unfortunately the images were so old and it has since lost its roof. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise though as it would have obscured Rho Ophiuchi otherwise :)
Nikon d5500
50mm
ISO 4000
f/2.2
Foreground: 34 x 30 seconds
Sky: 97 x 25 seconds
iOptron SkyTracker
Hoya Red Intensifier filter
This is a 131 shot panorama of the Milky Way as it sets above Emu Downs Wind Farm near Cervantes, about 2 hours north of Perth in Western Australia.
I was hoping for one of the turbines to be switched off so I could easily capture the blades but they all seemed to be moving, albeit quite slowly in the light winds. The next best thing was to try and very quickly shine my torch on the nearest turbine, which was relatively close to me, in order to capture the blades as well. Normally the blades would not show up on a long exposure like this. I had quite a few goes at it and this was about the best I could manage, slightly blurred but I was happy nonetheless.
Prominent in this image is the Carina Nebula, just above the horizon on the far left and the North America Nebula, slightly higher above the horizon on the far right. Just above and to the left of the centre turbine is the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex.
When I first started planning for the Super Flower Blood Moon eclipse that occurred last Wednesday morning, I noticed that the eclipsed moon would be very close to the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex. Typically, you need a moonless night to be able to image the yellow and blue clouds around Antares and the other stars and clusters, but I had hoped that a fully eclipsed moon would allow us to image both at the same time. Luckily, it did
We lugged a ton of equipment up to Lake Alpine, CA to get away from city lights and get some clear, cold, sparse air which is good for imaging.
There is a ton of processing here, but it's not a fake. 20 images were stacked in Siril to bring out the details in the cloud complex. 4 other images were combined using HDR to bring out the eclipsed moon details. They were then blended in Photoshop preserving their positions. All images taken on a Sony A7S3, Canon 70-200mm, f/2.8 at f/3.2 and 150mm on a Star Adventurer Tracker
As the core season is drawing to an end, it is time to start working on my processing backlog. This also lets me revisit some of the stunning places I had the privilege to photograph this year.
I have been doing night photography for several years now, but I have not spent many nights in more remote places than this. Dozens of miles away from civilization, the sky is incredibly dark and, while being the only human soul far and wide might give some people the creeps, it makes me focused and helps me connect to the universe in a way I cannot do when I have company.
Who needs dreams, when he can get such views in reality?
EXIF
Canon EOS 6D astro modified
Sigma 35mm f1.4 ART @f2.8
iOptron SkyTracker Pro
Low Level Lighting
Sky
6 x 30s @ ISO6400, tracked, stacked
Foreground
20 x 30s @ ISO6400, stacked
Prints available:
Nikon d810a
50mm
ISO 8000
f/2.5
Foreground: 14 x 20 seconds
Sky: 48 x 30 seconds
iOptron SkyTracker
Hoya Red Intensifier filter
This is a 62 shot panorama of the Milky Way rising over the northern end of Lake Ninan, a little over 2 hours north east of Perth in Western Australia.
I wasn't initially planning to visit this location but was persuaded to go by two local astrophotographers who I joined earlier in the night at another spot. Turned out to be a great idea as this is probably the best 'dead tree lake' spot I've see in my area to date.
Prominent in this image are the Large & Small Magellanic Clouds, almost obscured by the light pollution from the Wheatbelt town of Calingiri on the right side. Just above them is the pink coloured Carina Nebula. On the left of course is the Sagittarius region, the brightest part of the core. Connected to that, by the Dark River, is the colourful Rho Ophiuchi Complex.
Rho Ophiuchi
Luglio/Agosto 2021
Località: San Romualdo - Ravenna
Samyang 135mm F/4
Avalon M1 - QHY5III 174M su OAG Celestron
QHY294C - Gain 1600 - Offset 5 - raffreddata -10
Filtro Optlong L-Pro 32x120"+51x180" - L-enhance 44x5 min.
Acquisizione: SharpCap - Calibrata con Dark e Flat.
Elaborazione: Astroart6, MaximDL5, Paint Shop Pro 2021, Topaz e Nik Plug-in.
www.cfm2004.altervista.org/astrofotografia/nebulose/rhoop...
Wile my recently published time lapse movie "Stars on the Move" (see: youtu.be/LAT9HzQnPMo) contains footage from this remote place in northern Arizona, I have not posted any stills from there. Definately something I have to change...
I found this canyon during my search for interesting foreground features in places that are not as crowded as some of the "bucket list" landmarks in the Southwest. The red sandstone rocks with their crisscrossing white lines reminded me of crazy petroglyphs or an alien graffitti. On closer scrutiny however, they clearly are of natural origin.
Of course, I had to stay for the night and not surprisingly, I had this incredible location all to myself. Ok, there were a few coyotes in the area, but I did not see a human soul within 20 miles. Dark skies and beautiful rocks, are what a landscape astrophotographers dreams are made of...
This is a great example for how rewarding it can be to leave the beaten path and find "new" places instead of crowding a few overshot features with dozens of other photographers.
Prints available:
EXIF
Canon EOS 6D astro modified
Samyang 24mm f/1.4
iOptron SkyTracker Pro
Low Level Lighting
Sky:
6 x 30s @ ISO3200, tracked
Foreground :
6 x 30s @ ISO3200
The Milky Way, with the starclouds of the galactic core in Sagittarius at left and the head of Scorpius at right, over a still ice-covered Cameron Lake, a high altitude alpine lake in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada. This was on a very clear night on June 2, 2021.
The Lagoon Nebula, M8, and M24 Small Sagittarius Starcloud are prominent at left. Antares and the Rho Ophiuchi dark lanes are at right just over the mountain ridge, with the tracked shots timed to catch Antares before it set behind the peak. The Galactic "Dark Horse" is at centre, with this area of sky about as high as it would get for the night — this is right on the Canada-US border at 49° N.
The landscape is lit only by starlight and residual airglow. Cameron Lake is in the extreme southwest corner of Alberta and is certainly one of the darkest places in Canada. Waterton Lakes is a Dark Sky Preserve. The slope at left is scarred from the 2017 Kenow Fire.
This is a blend of tracked and untracked exposures: a stack of 2 x 8-minute untracked shots at ISO 400 for the ground, and a stack of 4 x 2-minute tracked shots at ISO 1600 for the sky. All were with the 35mm Canon L-series EF lens at f/2.8 and Canon Ra camera. The tracker was the little MSM Move-Shoot-Move Rotator, polar aligned with the laser. The ground shots were taken immediately after the tracked sky shots. Stacked, masked and blended in Photoshop.
What can an astrophotographer do if the skies are cloudy?
There are several possibilities:
-Catch some sleep
-Have a drink with civilized friends that do not share his passion for all nighters in remote places
-Process old images that are buried in the abyss of your hard drive
-Go out shooting anyway and hope for a break in the clouds
While the last option might sound like the least alluring, its results can be very rewarding, if you are lucky enough to find that break in the clouds. If not, well… another lost night.
Here is an example from March. As the weather forecast was not entirely hopeless, I got out of my bed at midnight, drove 90 minutes into the mountains and snowshoed to the top of a hill for 30 minutes. I was rewarded with 2 minutes of partly clear skies and was able to capture this image.
What do you think; was it worth the effort?
EXIF
Canon EOS 6D, astro modified
Samyang 24mm f/1.4
8 x 10s @ISO 6400
Stacked for noise reduction
Prints available:
Last weekend we went on an astrophotography trip once again. The first night we drove 7 hours to the black forest in Germany where we spend almost 12 hours on the top of a mountain called the Hornisgrinde where we had scouted several interesting foregrounds. This is the first shot from that night. It is a blend of the milky way galactic core at 50mm blended with a foreground at 50mm. I’m getting more and more addicted to longer focal lenghts for astro photography!
Triplet 115/800
Flattener Reducer: 0.79
ZWO ASI 183 MM PRO
LRGB #optolong
300 | 45 | 45 | 45
All frames Bin 1x1 - Gain 111
Total: 435 minutes
PixInsight + PS6
Rho Ophichui Cloud Complex rising over Bisti Badlands.
Instead of just waiting for Milky Way to rise, I decided to give the colorful Antares region another try...
- Astro modified Canon EOS 6D
- Canon EF70-200 f/2.8 L IS USM ll @ 70mm
- iOptron SkyTracker
- Low Level Lighting (LLL) with 2 LED lights
Foreground:
- 5 x 120s @ ISO 1600
- untracked and merged in PS
Sky:
- 11 x 120s @ ISO 1600
- tracked and stacked with fitswork4
Thanks for all your faves and comments.
Prints available:
The Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex is one of my favorite spring targets. Not only is the region extremely colorful, it also consists of many interesting astronomical objects:
- Rho Ophiuchi is the star within the blue reflection nebula. If you zoom into the image you can see that it is actually a 3-star system. The blue color of the nebula is produced by Rayleigh Scattering, the same process that colors our daylight sky blue.
- The Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex on the other hand is the dark nebula south of the star Rho Ophiuchi. At a distance of 427 light-years, it is one of the closest star forming regions to the solar system.
- The yellow star within the yellow nebula is Antares, the brightest star of the constellation Scorpius. It is a red supergiant, nearing the end of its live. The star has depleted the fuel supply of hydrogen within its core and is now bloated to monstrous proportions. As it goes through its death throes, the star has expelled a lot of its mass as shells of gas and dust into space. The nebulosity surrounding Antares is created by this gas and dust which is reflecting the dying star’s yellowish light.
- To the right of Antares is the globular cluster M4. Globular clusters are massive, tightly packed spheres that contain thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of individual stars.
- Above M4 you find Sigma Scorpii. It is multiple star system of hot, young stars, emitting of UV radiation. As this high energy UV light hits the hydrogen atoms it energizes them, and the electrons separate from the atomic nucleus. When they recombine, the electrons give off a reddish-pink light which makes the gas cloud glow.
- Below Antares is Tau Scorpii, surrounded by another faint emission nebula of energized hydrogen.
- Both Sigma and Tau Scorpii share the same name: Al Niyat. They got their name from ancient Arabic astronomers and it means, "the arteries". Seeing how these stars with their red nebula flank Antares, the heart of Scorpius, it makes sense that they could be viewed as the arteries of that colossal, dying heart.
As you can see, the region around Rho Ophiuchi has it all. Its colors tell a story of darkness and light, of peaceful coexistence and violence and of birth and death.
EXIF
Canon EOS 6D, astro-modified
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 135mm
iOptron SkyTracker Pro
Sky:
15 × 60s @ ISO1600
Foreground:
7 x 60s @ ISO3200
Nikon d5500
50mm
ISO 3200
f/2.5
Foreground: 37 x 6 seconds
Sky: 78 x 30 seconds
iOptron SkyTracker
Hoya Red Intensifier filter
This is a 115 shot panorama of the Milky Way above Lake Ninan, about two hours north east of Perth in Western Australia. I was hoping for some water in the lake but as you can see it was dry as a bone.
The light pollution on the right is from the nearby Wheatbelt town of Calingiri. Just to the left of this are the Large & Small Magellanic Clouds.
When Angela and I are alone with the stars, I sometimes wonder how many civilizations are out there, waiting to be discovered. How many are long since abandoned? This abandoned house is just off Highway 395 near Mono Lake. We’ve wanted to photograph this since first driving by several years ago, and we finally made it happen a few weeks ago. I’m always delighted when a series of fortuitous events unfolds, and on this night a pair of photographers showed up with a gel light. We rolled with it and got some fun shots in the process, including this one. While they were adjusting the light before setting it in the house, a stray beam of purple grazed the sagebrush in front of me during this exposure. Back on my computer I realized the intensity, direction, and duration of the light works, and it looks like purple flowers in bloom, so I’ve used this as the master along with a sequential stack for lighting and noise reduction.
EXIF
Canon 6D 25 sec f/2.8 ISO 6400 .. 5 images stacked
Canon EF 24mm f/2.8 IS USM .. Set to manual
Processed with DPP and PS
SOCIAL
instagram.com/brian.design.ig
flickr.com/22920269@N03
6/24/2017 2:24 AM
Galactic core, Scorpius and the Galactic Rift. Mars and Saturn join the party.
Captured using a Canon 6D (full spectrum modified), Zeiss 135mm f2.0, Astronomik clip in 'L' filter, Astrotrac
I hope you are not fed up with Rho Ophiuchi shots yet. As spring is Rho time, I cannot guarantee that there will not be more coming...
I captured this image in the Toggenburg Valley of eastern Switzerland from the same area as my "Rural Idyll" post. Those who have seen that image may recognize the teeth as two of the Churfirsten peaks. These rocky twins are called Schibenstoll and Zuestoll and are up to on meter of the same hight (2234 and 2235 meter).
EXIF
Canon EOS Ra
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM @ 100mm, f/2.8
iOptron SkyTracker
Sky:
Stack of 12 x 90s @ ISO1600, tracked
Foreground:
Stack of 5 x 90s @ ISO3200
Deepscapes has become a go to challenge for me and this one is a clear example.
Some info about this image:
1. Everything you see was acquired at 400mm, the same tripod position and night but at different times.
2. First I did the tracked deepsky sesh of RHO in a horizontal position at 1:33am and then did the long exposure of the foreground in a vertical position at 3:33am, I only changed the ballhead direction a bit and turned off the tracker to get the mountain.
3.What makes even more sense in this image is that Rho Ophiuchi rises almost precisely at this alignment from this location with a 95% accuracy after my research watching my own timelapses from this same spot so I'm pretty much on point here.
4. I rotated the Rho Ophiuchi image after processing to match the vertical foreground shot and decided to have Antares up in the right part of the composition so it was rotated 90° to the left, this made the final image very long in the vertical direction, almost like a Panorama.
Track | Stack | Blend at 400mm
>Single shot for FG: 169sec • F7.1 • iso640
>Track & Stack for SKY: x50 • 30sec • F7.1 • iso8000 | Calibration: x30 darks • x52 bias
>Total Exposure Time: 25min
>Unmodified cam & no filters.
This is my favorite region to shoot in the entire night sky. Where else can you get such a jaw-dropping splash of red, blue, and yellow-gold nebulosity - and a globular star cluster (M4) thrown in for good measure - all in one frame? And the trails of dark nebulosity confer an impression of motion - as if the colorful fireworks are shooting forward. But the object has always been a bear to process for me, and this image has "technical difficulties," but I will come back to it later and work on improving it.
This is a stack of 52 tracked (not guided) 90-second exposures taken with a stock Fujifilm X-T10 camera and Samyang 135mm f/2 lens at f/2, ISO 1600. The images were stacked in DSS and processed in Astro Pixel Processor (APP) and Photoshop. No calibration frames were applied for this image. I took flat frames but the stacking in DSS yielded a very gray image that was hard to coax any color out of, so I'll have to go back and look at what's going on there. Fortunately, APP is very good at removing gradients and vignetting, so flat frames are not really needed - for this setup anyway.
There was a lot of smoke in the air from nearby controlled burns, which I think cut down the transparency. I had to exclude a number of the early exposures because the stars were massively bloated due to light scattering by the smoke. The camera was mounted on an Orion Sirius EQ-G equatorial mount, which provided the tracking.
غيمة Rho Ophiuchi هي من اجمل الغيوم الغازية الفضائية في فصل الصيف لما تحتويه من الوان براقةو جذابة. حيث تحوي على سدم صفراء و حمراء و زرقاء بالاضافة الى السدم السوداء المظلمة. الغيمة الصفراء تحيط بنجم قلب العقرب ، نجم الاحيمر كما يسميه العرب. اما السدم الزرقاء فهي غيوم فضائية تحيط بنجوم يافعه. تقع هذة الغازات على بعد ٤٠٠ سنه ضوئية من الارض. تم تصويرهذة الصورة باستخدام عدسة كاميرا و ليس تلسكوب نظرا لكبر حجم هذة المنطقة من السماء. حيث تغطي هذة الصورة تقريبا ١٠ * ١٥ درجة من السماء بينما يغطي القمر البدر ٠،٥ درجة فقط.مدة التعريض ٦ ساعات في ثلاث ليالي. This huge cloud complex is the most colorful region in the summer sky. It consists of a Yellow, Blue, Red & Dark nebulae. The Yellow gas cloud is a reflection nebula due to expelling gases from the giant star Antares (the heart of the Scorpion constellation). The Blue nebulae are reflection nebulae also but they are surrounding young stars. While, Red nebulae are emission ones. This gas cloud is about 400 light years from Earth. The image is covering 10 x 15 degrees of the sky. It is taken by a camera lens not a telescope. Just for comparison, the Moon is covering only 0.5 degree of the sky. So, imagine how big is this region in the sky. Total exposure is 6 hours. Gear setup: Rokinon 135mm @f/2.8, iOptron SkyGuider Pro guided by ZWO mini scope and ZWO120MM, ZWO 2400MC @0, Optolong UHC 2” filter. Light subs 120 x 180sec over 3 nights, 20 Darks, 20 Flats and 50 Bias. Captured by ASIair. Processed in PI, PS & Topaz. Image taken from Bortle 4 scale dark sky.
Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex | Deep Sky Astrophotography (tracked, stacked)
www.instagram.com/robin_onderka
This beautiful complex full of nebulae is located in the constellation Scorpio. In our country, it climbs quite low above the horizon, so it is more difficult to photograph it. It is part of the summer constellations (summer Milky Way) and is located near its center. It is one of the most photogenic areas ever, and if Orion is the jewel of the winter sky, Rho Ophiuchi dominates the summer one :-)
it is only a remake of the original data from this summer, processed in APP and Photoshop, photographed from Beskid Mountains, Czech Republic (Bortle 4)
Canon 6D astro-mod, Samyang 135 mm f / 2
22 x 60 "f / 2.4 ISO 1600 + 10 darks and calibration
Skywatcher Star Adventurer
I have been waiting for quite some time to capture the Rho Ophiuchi region. Initially, I was only thinking about shooting a deep sky image, but after some successful nightscapes with my tele zoom lens, it was clear to me that I had to capture it with a nice looking foreground.
I finally got my chance during my latest stay in the Gantrisch region, where I have been able to capture this incredibly colorful region of sky rising behind a peak called Nuenenen. As the sky was not perfectly clear the brighter stars are sporting dreamy halos.
Rho Ophiuchi is the close pair in blue nebulosity near the center of the image. The star system, located only 400 light years away, is distinguished by its colorful surroundings, which include a red emission nebula around σ Scorpii (Alniyat) and numerous light and dark brown dust lanes. The yellow star below the Rho Ophiuchi molecular cloud system is Antares, while the distant but coincidently-superposed globular cluster M4, is visible between Antares and the red emission nebula.
Astro modified Canon EOS 6D
Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 L
iOptron Skytracker
Sky:
20 x 60s @ ISO1600 stacked with fitswork4
Foreground:
3 x 60s @ ISO1600 stacked with PS
Thanks for all your faves and comments.
The giant shark named Megalodon was extinct about 3 million years ago. When I saw this rock in Joshua Tree National Park, it immediately reminded me of a petrified Megalodon caught in the act of breaking the waves of a rocky ocean.
I quickly checked my planning app and was happy to find that the rising Milky Way lines up with the scene. Due to the very confined space, I nevertheless decided to shoot the Milky Way from a less obstructed spot a few meters away.
EXIF
Canon EOS R, astro-modified
Sigma 28mm f/1.4 ART
iOptron SkyTracker Pro
IDAS NBZ filter
Sky:
Panorama of 2 panels, each a stack of 6x 45s @ ISO1600, f/2, unfiltered & 3x 105s @ ISO6400, f/2, filtered
Foreground:
Vertical panorama of 4 panels, each 5s @ ISO400, f/8, during blue hour.
I took this image at 'Lago del Pic d'Asti' on the Italian side of a high alpine pass between France and Italy.
I arrived at the small lake at lunchtime and found it enshrouded in fog. Tired after shooting 3 nights in a row, I enjoyed a lazy afternoon and chatted with some of the campers. When they heard that I was planning to do astrophotography, they voiced their doubts due to the fog. I told them that I was expecting the fog to dissipate shortly after sunset, which earned me a few chuckles.
As sunset arrived, the fog subsided within minutes, giving way to completely clear skies. Now it was me who chuckled, glad that my assessment of the weather had proved to be correct.
I invited the campers to join me for some stargazing, but they called it a night instead. They might have decided differently if they knew what they were about to miss...
Prints available: ralf-rohner.pixels.com
EXIF
Canon EOS 6D, astro-modified
Samyang 24mm f/1.4 @ f/2
iOptron SkyTracker Pro
Sky:
Panorama of 2 panels, each a stack of 6 x 45s @ ISO1600, tracked
Foreground:
Stack of 13 x 45s @ ISO3200
Reflection:
Single exposure of 30s @ ISO6400
This is one of the areas I've always wanted to image, and I finally got around to it. So much colour! I piggybacked my 7DII DSLR on my AVX mount, and used a Rokinon 135mm lens. This is about an hour's worth of data.
There is a whole bunch of things in this area, most notably M4 (a large globular cluster), the Antares Nebula (yellow), the Rho Ophiuchi Nebula (blue), Sharpless 2-9 (red), and the rho Ophiuchus dark nebular complex, which of course, is the dark nebula. This is a major star-forming region, and it's about 450 light years away.
This nebular region is quite wide in the sky... this image is about 7 degrees wide.
This is Metate Arch in Grand Staircase-Escalante NM.
Due to the rocks, the space around the arch is rather confined and I found it quite difficult to get a good composition. I finally opted for an untracked 3 panel panorama, shot with my Samyang 24mm f/1.4 lens.
Due to the narrow space, my first light setup overexposed the foreground scene. I therefore had to find a way to lower my LED panels below their minimum output. For this I put a cotton bag over one panel and used the rocks behind me to reflect the light of the second light back to the scene. The inside of the arch was lit by a small omnidirectional LED light on minimum power.
A few days ago Wayne Pinkston published a very similar image of Metate Arch flic.kr/p/ZGWzBY, which he took in collaboration with Royce Bair the night before my visit. I can’t believe that I missed two of the best nightscape photographers by just one night!!!
On the other hand, it is very interesting to compare my work with what the masters of the trade achieve under the same conditions…
EXIF
Astro-modified Canon EOS 6D
Samyang 24mm f/1.4
Panorama:
- 3 panels, each consisting of 4 images of 12s @ ISO 6400
- Individually stacked:
- for the foreground: with PS
- for the sky: with fitswork4
- foreground and sky inividually stiched with PTGui and recombined and processed with PS
Thanks for all your comments and faves!
Prints available:
About this image
A widefield image of a section of the large Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex. Rho Ophiuchi is a dark nebula of gas and dust that is located 1° south of the star ρ Ophiuchi of the constellation Ophiuchus (close to the red Supergiant star Antares).
About the Interstellar Cloud Colors:
Fine dust illuminated from the front by starlight produces blue reflection nebulae. The atoms of gaseous clouds that are excited by ultraviolet starlight produce reddish emission nebulae. Back-lit dust clouds block light and appear dark. Antares (a red super-giant star, and one of the brighter stars in the night sky), lights up the yellow-red dust clouds. Rho Ophiuchi lies at the center of the blue nebula. Interstellar clouds are even more colorful than we can see in visible light, emitting light across a large portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.
About the Star Colors:
Star colors vary from red, orange, 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:
William Optics Star 71mm f/4.9 Imaging APO Refractor Telescope.
William Optics 50mm Finder Scope.
Celestron SkySync GPS Accessory.
Orion Mini 50mm Guide Scope.
Orion StarShoot Autoguider.
Celestron AVX Mount.
QHYCCD PoleMaster.
Celestron StarSense.
MBox USB Meteostation.
RoboFocus RF3 Focuser.
Optolong L-Pro and LRGB filters.
QHYCFW2-M-US Filterwheel (7 position x 36mm).
QHY163M Cooled CMOS Monochrome Astronomy Camera.
Tech:
Guiding in Open PHD 2.6.5.
Sequence Generator Pro.
Imaged in LRGB:
L = 34 x 180 sec.
R = 24 x 180 sec.
G = 24 x 180 sec.
B = 24 x 180 sec.
Camera Settings:
Gain: 120
Offset: 35
Imaged at -30°C or -22°F
Calibration Frames:
50 x Bias/Offset.
30 x Darks.
20 x Flats.
Image Acquisition:
Sequence Generator Pro Framing Wizard.
Plate Solving:
Astrometry.net ANSVR Solver via SGP.
Processing:
Pre-Processing and Linear workflow in PixInsight,
and finished in Photoshop.
Astrometry Info:
View the Annotated Sky Chart for this image.
Center RA, Dec: 247.220, -25.077
Center RA, hms: 16h 28m 52.873s
Center Dec, dms: -25° 04' 38.916"
Size: 4.42 x 3.08 deg
Radius: 2.696 deg
Pixel scale: 9.95 arcsec/pixel
Orientation: Up is 83.8 degrees E of N
View this image in the WorldWideTelescope.
&creditsUrl=&ra=247.001014&dec=-24.672772&x=663.0&y=644.4&rotation=96.25&thumb=http://nova.astrometry.net/image/5032001){kind=link}
SQM-L Sky Quality Reading:
22.05
Flickr Explore:
Photo usage and Copyright:
Medium-resolution photograph licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Terms (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). For High-resolution Royalty Free (RF) licensing, contact me via my site: Contact.
Martin
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*If you'd like to learn more about night-sky panoramas or my post-processing techniques, join me next month in Arches!*
I took this one in July of this summer while scouting locations for my flagship night-sky workshop at Crater Lake National Park. The sky was absolutely ablaze with green, orange, and red airglow on this particular night.
This is a fairly busy and popular location, although not nearly as popular as other locations along Rim Road. Regardless, I wanted to give a slightly different perspective to this much-photographed location, so I opted for a transverse Mercator projection to this panorama, which encompasses an approximately 170-degree by 170-degree field of view. (In short, you're seeing ground that was nearly straight down from my camera and sky that was nearly at the zenith.)
Thanks for taking a look!
The Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex glows in vibrant swirls of gold, blue, and deep space mystery. One of the most colorful and dynamic regions in our night sky, this stellar nursery located about 400 light-years away showcases the birthplace of stars wrapped in dark nebulae and illuminated by nearby giants. A reminder of the beauty and complexity of the universe, captured through the lens of patience, passion, and a little starlight.
-= Tech Data =-
-Equipment-
Imaging Scope: Askar FRA300 Pro
Mount: Sky-Watcher Star Adventuer GTi
Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI 2600MC Air
Focus: ZWO EAF
- Acquisition -
∙ 420 minutes of 5 minute exposures
this is actually a reprocessing of the image I took earlier in the year, now that I have a slightly better understanding of how to process astro images, another challenge is that instead of a stack of one hour of data this is simply a single 2 minute subframe stretched, very happy with how it came out
The first anniversary image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope displays star birth like it’s never been seen before, full of detailed, impressionistic texture. The subject is the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the closest star-forming region to Earth. It is a relatively small, quiet stellar nursery, but you’d never know it from Webb’s chaotic close-up. Jets bursting from young stars crisscross the image, impacting the surrounding interstellar gas and lighting up molecular hydrogen, shown in red. Some stars display the telltale shadow of a circumstellar disk, the makings of future planetary systems.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pontoppidan (STScI)
#NASA #STScI #jwst #jameswebbspacetelescope #NASAGoddard #NASAMarshall #stellarnursery
Dark dust clouds together with bright reflection nebulae make a colorful scene.
Rho Ophiuchi complex
Telescope live
Nikon 200 mm F2 lens
4.5 hours total exposure, RGB
El Sauce Observatory
Río Hurtado, Chile
Mount: 10 Micron GM1000HPs German equatorial mount
Camera: FLI ML 16200
2021 data
The first anniversary image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope displays star birth like it’s never been seen before, full of detailed, impressionistic texture. The subject is the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the closest star-forming region to Earth. It is a relatively small, quiet stellar nursery, but you’d never know it from Webb’s chaotic close-up. Jets bursting from young stars crisscross the image, impacting the surrounding interstellar gas and lighting up molecular hydrogen, shown in red. Some stars display the telltale shadow of a circumstellar disc, the makings of future planetary systems.
The young stars at the centre of many of these discs are similar in mass to the Sun or smaller. The heftiest in this image is the star S1, which appears amid a glowing cave it is carving out with its stellar winds in the lower half of the image. The lighter-coloured gas surrounding S1 consists of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a family of carbon-based molecules that are among the most common compounds found in space.
[Image description: Red dual opposing jets coming from young stars fill the darker top half of the image, while a glowing pale-yellow, cave-like structure is bottom centre, tilted toward two o’clock, with a bright star at its centre. The dust of the cave structure becomes wispy toward eight o’clock. Above the arched top of the dust cave three groupings of stars with diffraction spikes are arranged. A dark cloud sits at the top of the arch of the glowing dust cave, with one streamer curling down the right-hand side. The dark shadow of the cloud appears pinched in the centre, with light emerging in a triangle shape above and below the pinch, revealing the presence of a star inside the dark cloud. The image’s largest jets of red material emanate from within this dark cloud, thick and displaying structure like the rough face of a cliff, glowing brighter at the edges. At the top centre of the image, a star displays another, larger pinched dark shadow, this time vertically. To the left of this star is a more wispy, indistinct region.]
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA
Top right: the M4 Globular Cluster, s a dense sphere of stars (100,000), with an estimated age of 12.2 billion years. Located about 7,200 light-years away, it's one of the closest globular clusters to Earth. M4 is easily visible with binoculars and small telescopes, especially during the summer months. All the color? much closer. The Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex is a prominent star-forming region located about 400-460 light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus, making it one of the closest to Earth. It's a vibrant, dynamic region composed of gas and dust, containing both bright reflection nebulae (blue light from stars scattered by dust) and darker areas where stars are being born.
radiantelescopes, Radian Raptor 61, ZWO2600M, Optolong LRGB. 14hr 45m of integration time. Taken during the Texas Star Party last month.
Here's another from central Oregon's dark skies. Thanks for checking it out!
More photos can be seen at my website.
I dug up the RAW frames from three different 50mm Scorpius shoots and stacked them together to see what I'd get. Total exposition time is 32 minutes.
The Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex is a complex of interstellar clouds with different nebulae, particularly dark nebulae which is centered 1° south of the star rho Ophiuchi, which it among others extends to, of the constellation Ophiuchus. At an estimated distance of 360 lightyears away, it is one of the closest star-forming regions to the Solar System. Rho is the 17th letter of the Greek alphabet, indicating that the star rho Ophiuchi is the 17th brightest star in the constellation Ophiuchus (so not so bright). The brightest star in this picture (lower left) is Antares (a red giant which is how our own sun will eventually die). Antares is in the constellation Scorpio. This was taken with thirty, 2-minute exposures and combined in Siril and Photoshop.
The image was taken from the Lick Observatory, atop Mt. Hamilton in San Jose, CA using a Sony A7 riv mirrorless camera and a Sony 100-400 GM lens at 143 mm on a star tracking mount.
Antares Region [mosaic]
Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello
(Antares) RA 16 29 24.460 DEC -26 25 55.21
The Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex is a dark nebula of gas and dust that is located 1° south of the star ρ Ophiuchi. At an estimated distance of 131 ± 3 parsecs, this cloud is one of the closest star-forming regions to the Solar System. This cloud covers an angular area of 4.5° × 6.5° in the Sky.
The brightest star in this image is Antares (Alpha Scorpii or α Sco), the fifteenth brightest star in the sky and the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius.
Well visible also Messier 4 (NGC 6121), a globular cluster, approximately at 7,200 light years.
Pair of Jupiter-9 85 f/2 on EQ5 mount, 6h exposure
This wonderfully rich region of gas and dust can be found along boundary between Scorpius and Ophiuchus toward the center of the Milky Way galaxy. This image was taken under dark skies near Goldendale, WA, and is a stack of approximately 30 30-second exposures taken with a regular DSLR camera attached to a star tracking mount.
Camera: Nikon D7500
Lens: Tokina AT-X M100 PRO D Macro
Mount: iOptron SkyTracker Pro
Integration: 15 minutes (30 x 30 second exposures), f/3.5, ISO 800
Software: PixInsight 1.8, Adobe Lightroom, PaintShop Pro
A wash of red airglow covers the horizon in southern Utah. The brightest object is the planet Jupiter.
About this image:
A two panel widefield mosaic of a section of the large Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex, including IC4603, IC4604 and the Globular Cluster Messier 4 (M4). Rho Ophiuchi is a dark nebula of gas and dust that is located 1° south of the star ρ Ophiuchi of the constellation Ophiuchus (close to the red Supergiant star Antares).
About the Interstellar Cloud Colors:
Fine dust illuminated from the front by starlight produces blue reflection nebulae. The atoms of gaseous clouds that are excited by ultraviolet starlight produce reddish emission nebulae. Back-lit dust clouds block light and appear dark. Antares (a red super-giant star, and one of the brighter stars in the night sky), lights up the yellow-red dust clouds. Rho Ophiuchi lies at the center of the blue nebula. Interstellar clouds are even more colorful than we can see in visible light, emitting light across a large portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.
About the Star Colors:
Star colors vary from red, orange, 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:
William Optics Star 71mm f/4.9 Imaging APO Refractor Telescope.
William Optics 50mm Finder Scope.
Celestron SkySync GPS Accessory.
Orion Mini 50mm Guide Scope.
Orion StarShoot Autoguider.
Celestron AVX Mount.
QHYCCD PoleMaster.
Celestron StarSense.
Canon 60Da DSLR.
Astronomik Clip-In CLS Light Pollution Filter.
Tech:
Guiding in Open PHD 2.6.3.
Image acquisition in Sequence Generator Pro.
Lights/Subs:
18 x 180 sec. per mosaic panel.
ISO 3200 RGB (CLA FITS).
Calibration Frames:
30 x Bias/Offset.
30 x Darks.
30 x Flats & Dark Flats.
Image Acquisition:
Sequence Generator Pro with the Mosaic and Framing Wizard.
Plate Solving:
Astrometry.net ANSVR Solver via SGP.
Processing:
Pre-Processing and Linear workflow in PixInsight,
and finished in Photoshop.
Astrometry Info:
Annotated Sky Chart for this image.
Center RA, Dec: 245.705, -24.459
Center RA, hms: 16h 22m 49.215s
Center Dec, dms: -24° 27' 31.791"
Size: 5.31 x 2.18 deg
Radius: 2.872 deg
Pixel scale:9.35 arcsec/pixel
Orientation:Up is 97 degrees E of N
View this image in the World Wide Telescope.
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Martin
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[Home Page] [Photography Showcase] [eBook] [Twitter]
I spent a number of nights this spring at this unique area of Arizona, which seems to be increasingly popular (at least compared to my first visit here, just a bit over two years ago). One one night (a clear night after a long string of cloudy nights with generally poor conditions) about 45 photographers were camped out in the parking lot. 45!
As you can imagine, the shooting conditions that night were challenging, with photographers of all experience levels wandering a relatively small area with all manner of flashlights, spotlights, and LED panels. I personally was forced from several areas as bright lights meandered their way in the dark toward me, and I slinked away to find another composition. The photo's title is partly an allusion to the other folks (like me) who were playing a strange game of hide-and-seek that night, setting up their gear in the dark and hoping that the bright-flashlight folks would give them a solid 5 minutes of respite from their bright beams.
This is a 2-row panorama of 4 photos per row, all taken back to back (no blending or compositing funny business, as is this case with all of my panoramas).