View allAll Photos Tagged RhoOphiuchi
Tracked / Stacked/ Composed
Sky: 6 images X 2 min, 68mm. Tracked with SkyWatcher Star Adventurer tracker + 10 flats. Stacked in Sequator
Ground: 14mm
Not my best picture so far. Bad light pollution condition allied with only 2 hours of 60 second frames. But man, I'm satisfied, at least for this year. I tried this same target with my old Nikon D5000 and got frustrated.
I'll definitely try it again next year, since my camera is now properly modified for astrophotography.
The Rho Ophiuchi complex, a large stellar nursery in the constellation Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer, as viewed by ESA’s Gaia satellite using information from the mission’s second data release.
This view is not a photograph but has been compiled by mapping the total amount of radiation detected by Gaia in each pixel, combined with measurements of the radiation taken through different filters on the spacecraft to generate colour information.
The image is dominated by the brightest, most massive stars; in some spots, these stars outshine their less bright, lower-mass counterparts.
Five bright stellar clusters stand out in this view: the brightest one, towards the right of the frame, is the globular cluster M4.
Acknowledgement: Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC); A. Moitinho / A. F. Silva / M. Barros / C. Barata, University of Lisbon, Portugal; H. Savietto, Fork Research, Portugal.
Credits: ESA/Gaia/DPAC
A Deepscape image of the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex setting over Cathedral Peak from Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite National Park. Antares is the bright yellow star at the center of the frame
A timelapse video of the frames taken is here: vimeo.com/1105606262?share=copy#t=0
Deepscapes are made by using an Equatorial Tracker to track the nebulae as they move through the night sky to gather enough data to bring out more detail than can be captured in a single image. Planning is required to determine where the Deep Sky object will rise or set and then place yourself at the right spot to capture them with a dramatic earth-based foreground. The location of the camera and the focal length used does not change. The relative size and place of the Cloud Complex to Cathedral Peak have been preserved.
Sony A7IV astro modified, Sony 70-200mm f/2.8, 163mm, f/4, ISO3200, 60 sec. Sky stacked using Siril and then composited with a Blue Hour foreground taken from same location and focal length. Over 2 hours of Lights collected to bring out the detail. Full set of Darks, Bias, and Flat frames were also captured.
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.]
Rho Ophiuchi region, there are 7 hours of integration in LRGB with Red Cat 51 Petzval Telescope, ASI6200mm pro 61-megapixel full-frame Mono camera on Paramount MX 6 mount, 146 shots of which in L 20x180 seconds, in R 45x180 seconds, in G 28x180 seconds and in B 53x180 seconds, processing with Pixinsight. All data and shots were acquired with SadrAstro. Rho Ophiuchi (ρ Ophiuchi / ρ Oph) is a star in the constellation Ophiuchus. 395 light-years away from the Solar System, it is associated with one of the closest star-forming regions to us, the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud. Rho Ophiuchi appears in the night sky as a star of magnitude +4.63, therefore visible to the naked eye as long as you have a perfectly dark and clear sky. It can be observed in the southwestern region of the constellation, almost on the border with Scorpius, three degrees north of the bright Antares and a little NE of σ Scorpii.
Located 23° south of the celestial equator, ρ Ophiuchi is a star in the southern hemisphere. Despite this, its possibilities of observation in the northern hemisphere are quite wide: it is in fact observable up to the 67th parallel N, that is, up to the Arctic Circle; only a large part of Greenland, the northernmost regions of Canada and Russia, as well as Iceland and part of Sweden and Norway are excluded. However, in the regions of northern Europe, southern Canada and central Russia, it will appear very low on the southern horizon and visible only for a few hours. The chances of observation improve as you move towards the temperate and tropical regions of the northern hemisphere. On the other hand, this same declination means that the star is circumpolar only further south than the 67th parallel S, i.e. only in the regions of the Antarctic continent.
The best time for observation coincides with the months of the northern summer, since the Sun is on the opposite side of the ecliptic; in particular in the weeks around the end of May and the beginning of June ρ Ophiuchi is visible throughout the night. On the contrary, in the weeks between the end of November and the beginning of December the star is not visible at all due to the very close sunlight; This period of invisibility lasts longer in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere, due to the southern declination of the star.
Rho Ophiuchi Nebulae complex in Scorpio with Antares, M4, IC 4603, IC 4604, IC 4605, IC 4606, Sh 2-9. Captured last night (2016.06.06).
Parallel exposure:
L: SX-36 Lpro filer, 50 x 420sec, Quindruple-Apo 70/350
RGB: CentralDS A7s, ISO 3200, IDAS-V4 filter, 50 x 420sec, Quindruple-Apo 70/350
EQ-8 mount unguided, Tenerife 1120 m alt
As a keen amateur night sky observer I used to spend hours tracing the dark dust clouds that obscure some brighter sections of the Milky Way.
Olympus OMD EM5.2,
Olympus 12-40 f2.8
@ 23mm, f2.8, ISO3200
x34 frames at 60seconds,
x18 dark frames.
Sightron Nano tracker.
Stacked in Sequator.
Processed in Photoshop.
Featuring the bright, red supergiant star Antares, the Rho Ophiuchi (oh'-fee-yu-kee) cloud complex is one of the most vibrant and colorful nebulas in space and the closest star-forming region to the solar system. The many spectacular colors of the Rho Ophiuchi clouds highlight the many processes that occur there. The blue regions shine primarily by reflected light. Blue light from the star Rho Ophiuchi and nearby stars reflects more efficiently off this portion of the nebula than red light. The Earth's daytime sky appears blue for the same reason. The red and yellow regions shine primarily because of emission from the nebula's atomic and molecular gas. Light from nearby blue stars - more energetic than the bright star Antares - knocks electrons away from the gas, which then shines when the electrons recombine with the gas.
Located approximately 460 light-years away from Earth, the interstellar clouds of gas and dust that make up Rho Ophiuchi contain emission nebulas that are rich with red, glowing hydrogen gas and blue reflection nebulas that reflect starlight from their surroundings.
Originally, astronomers believed the dark-brown regions in the cloud complex were areas in space where there were no stars, but it was later discovered that dark nebulae actually consist of clouds of interstellar dust so thick it can block out the light from the stars beyond.
Sony a7RII
SMC Pentax-A 645 150mm f/3.5
Vixen Polarie Star Tracker
74 Light frames
ISO 2500, 150mm, 60s at f/3.5
34 Dark Frames
62 Flat Frames
116 Bias Frames
Thanks to Andrew Klinger for stacking the images in PixInsight.
Processed in Capture One Pro and Adobe Photoshop
Imaged at Texas Astronomy Society’s Dark site in Atoka, Oklahoma.
Antares and Rho Ophiuchi clouds complex
Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello (Oria Amateur Astrophysical Observatory - OAAO)
(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.
(mosaic)
For images like this I use a combination of data with a Tair-3S 300mm f/4.5 telephoto array and a DIY astrograph with a rare Canon 110/250mm f/2.2 lens, so with three dedicated cameras. The captures (calibrated every single frame) are performed under a SQM=21.8 sky.
Cheers to our first year!
Let’s celebrate one year of Webb science by taking a brand-new look at Sun-like stars being born in this detailed close-up of Rho Ophiuchi, the closest-star-forming region to Earth. Webb spotted around 50 young stars, many close in mass to our star, giving us a glimpse into the early life of the Sun. Dark, dense dust cocoons still-forming protostars, while an emerging stellar newborn (top center) shoots out two huge jets of molecular hydrogen.
Webb’s ability to capture the universe in high-resolution, from early distant galaxies to the solar system we call home, is allowing us to better understand our own origins. Here’s to one amazing year, with many more to come!
Read more: go.nasa.gov/3JYxlbp
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pontoppidan (STScI), Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
Image description: Red dual opposing jets coming from young stars fill the darker top half of the image. At bottom center is a glowing pale yellow, cave-like structure, its top tilted toward two o’clock, with a bright star at its center. The dust of the cave structure becomes wispy toward eight o’clock. Above the arched top of the dust cave, 3 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 center, with light emerging in a triangle shape above and below the pinch, revealing the presence of a star inside the cloud. The 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 top center, a star displays another, larger pinched dark shadow, this time vertically. To the left of this star is a more wispy, indistinct region.
As the Milky Way core returns to the night sky in the early morning hours, I had the privilege of capturing its brilliance in Joshua Tree National Park at the beginning of February.
While scouting for compositions in the afternoon, I discovered this elegant S-curve in the road, framed beautifully by a striking Joshua Tree on the right. Using the PlanIt Photo app, I confirmed that the rising Milky Way would align perfectly with the scene - an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.
To add an extra dynamic element, I timed my shot to capture a passing car, its headlights illuminating the tree and its taillights painting a vivid red trail along the road, creating a leading line towards the star-filled heavens.
EXIF
Canon EOS-R, astro-modified by EOS 4Astro
Sigma 28mm f/1.4 ART
IDAS NBZ filter
iOptron SkyTracker Pro
Sunwayfoto T2840CK tripod
Sky:
Stack of 7x 45s @ ISO800, unfiltered & 3x 105s @ ISO3200, filtered
Foreground:
Single exposure of 30s @ ISO320, f/8 during twilight
In early May, I explored the rugged coastline of Northern California with Peter Ensrud During a daylight scout, we discovered a striking sea stack crowned by a natural rock arch. Later that night, we returned to witness the scene transformed. Beneath a breathtaking canvas of stars, the waves were shimmering in the light of a setting moon, while the Milky Way rose above the arch, revealing the shadowy outline of the Dark Horse Nebula and the radiant hues of the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, painting the night sky with cosmic brilliance.
EXIF
Canon EOS-R, astro-modified by EOS 4Astro
Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L ll @ 70mm
IDAS NBZ filter
iOptron SkyTracker
Sunwayfoto T2840CK tripod
Sky:
Stack of 10x 90s @ ISO1600, unfiltered & 5x 180s @ ISO6400, filtered
Foreground:
Focus stack of 10x 10s @ ISO100
If you look closely, this mountain resembles the head of a sleeping giant. Each night, it is visited by wondrous dreams — woven from stardust, glowing nebulae, and the silent whispers of the cosmos.
Captured beneath the dark skies of the Negev Desert, this image reveals the galactic core of the Milky Way rising above the ancient rocks, along with the vibrant Antares region and Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex.
A fleeting moment when Earth and universe dream together.
Tech details:
Camera: Nikon Z6 (astro-modified)
Lens: Nikkor 50mm G
Tracker: MSM Nomad
H-alpha filter: Astronomik 12nm Clip-Filter
Foreground: 1 picture 30 sec, f/3.2, ISO 400
Sky:
— RGB: tracked 5 images x 210 sec, f/2.8, ISO 640
— H-alpha: tracked 2 images x 210 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2000
Processing:
— Stacking in Sequator
— RGB and H-alpha aligned in Registar
— Background extraction in Siril
— Stars extraction in StarNet
— All blended and edited in Photoshop and Lightroom
Souvenir d’un passage express au cœur du Pays basque.
Direction le col de la Pierre Saint-Martin, à la frontière franco-espagnole
Rho Ophiuchi and the Blue Horsehead Nebula as seen on the evening of June 11, 2020 from Cherry Springs Dark Sky Park in northern Pennsylvania, which is a Bortle 2 location. Equipment used: Nikon D750, Rokinon 135mm f/2 ED UMC lens, and an AstroTrac. Two panel mosaic, with each panel consisting of 25 x 3 minute exposures shot at f/2 and ISO 1600.
Feel free to check out my other astro images on Instagram - @dm_astro
✨ Cette image est le fruit d’une mosaïque de 4 tuiles, chacune capturant 1h30 de signal, soit un total de 6h d'intégration au 135mm, sur plusieurs nuits (Ciel en Bortle 3)
-
🔧 Traitement : AstroPixelProcessor · GraXpert · Starnet++ · Photoshop
Below Antares, near the bottom of the frame is M4, the Crab Globular Cluster. IC 4604, the Rho Ophiuchi Nebula, is in the lower right corner.
This picture was made from a stack of 11 180-second exposures. The gear used was a Nikon D5600 with a Rokinon 135mm f/2.0 ED UMC telephoto, mounted on a computer-guided Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer. The field of view in this cropped version is 5.2 x 2.8 degrees. North is to the right.
Combining my love for travel and astro, with a little artistic license. Foreground shot on a cold night in January 2025 at Vestrahorn, Iceland. No aurora that night, but the location is iconic (think Game of Thrones and Vikings), and I had the place to myself, but for a NATO dome a few hundred metres away. Stacked, tracked and blended Rho Ophiuchi makes up the skies. Why not.
This image isn’t the photo I had planned to post today, but time got away from me tonight. I’ve pulled this one from my virtual shelf to give you some lovely colours to look at instead.
This image was created using a process called “stacking”. Stacking aims to reduce the overall digital noise in an image, achieved by taking multiple photos and using software to overlay them on each other. The program then looks for information that’s not common to all of the images (or a majority of them, at least) and discards it. Since camera-generated noise signals differ from shot-to-shot (and so are dropped), the noise is significantly reduced. The resulting photo shows more details of the stars, nebulae and other celestial features.
The bright white spot in the lower right-hand corner is Jupiter, our Solar System’s largest planet. Below Jupiter, you can see some dark streaks that seem to lead down to a grouping of stars that are surrounded by smudges of colour. This area, near the star Antares, is known as the “Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex”, a star-forming region of space and one of the closest such stellar nurseries to Earth.
My Canon EOS 6D Mk II camera is responsible for the photos used in the final image. The camera was fitted with a Yongnuo 50mm f/1.4 lens @ f/1.4, and I exposed each frame for 5.0 seconds @ ISO 6400. After shooting the 30 images (15 with all of the colour and light, and then 15 with the lens cap on), I dumped the shots into my computer and imported them to Lightroom. Next, I used the Mac software “StarrySkyStacker” to combine and de-noise the frames. The resulting image was imported into Lightroom for my final editing process.
This view of the Scorpius constellation may not look much like a scorpion's head but it sure looks colorful against the night sky. Who would have thought a bunch of dust and gas could look so pretty?
I captured this image of the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex using iTelescope's T70 wide field telescope based in the Deep Sky Chile Observatory in Rio Hurtado Valley, Chile over 2 nights - 7/15/2021 and 7/16/2021.
Telescope Optics & Camera
• Samyang 135mm f/3.5
• CMOS ASI 1600mm Pro
Exposure Settings (24 images)
• Luminance: 5 minutes x 6, bin 1
• Red: 5 minutes x 6 images, bin 2
• Green: 5 minutes x 6 images, bin 2
• Blue: 5 minutes x 6 images, bin 2
Nikon d5500
50mm
ISO 4000
f/2.8
Foreground: 19 x 20 seconds
Sky: 86 x 30 seconds
iOptron SkyTracker
Hoya Red Intensifier filter
This is a 105 shot panorama of the Milky Way setting over Lake Ninan, 2 hours north east of Perth in Western Australia. The light pollution on the left is from the nearby Wheatbelt town of Calingiri.
Mount: Takahashi PM-1
Lens: Rokinon f/2.8 135mm
Camera: Nikon D610 (modified)
Lights: 46 x 2min
Darks: 40
Biases: 100
Taken at Zion National Park, UT
This part of the sky is one of the most colourful region in the sky. This area is about 4.5 x 6.5 degrees across the sky and lies between Ophiuchus & Scorpius constellations. This complex nebulosity cloud is composed of dust & gases that can produce 3,000 suns of our solar system. It consists of one of the closest star forming clouds and lies about 460ly from the Earth. It contains many celestial objects like large star clusters M4 and small star cluster NGC 6144. The yellow-brown star is Antares, which is a super giant star near its end of life. The yellowish cloud around Antares is caused by puffing star’s material to the space. The dark lanes in the image are dark nebulae that hide the stars behind it. I planned to image this beautiful part of the sky by two different lenses. The first one was taken by Canon 100mm f/2.8 camera lens for a wide view of the region and the second one for close-up view was taken by Redcat51 f/4.9. Actually, the close-up image revealed a lot of details of the complex cloud. For both images ZWO ASI 2600MC cooled @ -10 degree. The image subs are 180 sec exposure and the total integration for both images are around 1 hr, 20 Darks, 20 Bias and 20 Flats. Gear setup: iOptron SkyGuider pro unguided, ASIair, Baader UHC-S 2” Filter. Images processed by PS 2020 CC.
Nel cuore dello Scorpione, complesso Rho Ophiuchi e IC4592
8 Luglio 2023
Località: San Romano (FC)
Samyang 35mm F/4 - QHY533C raffreddata -10
Skywatcher StarAdventurer - Pose non guidate
Filtro Baader UV/IR-cut 32x180"
Acquisizione: Astroart8 - Calibrata con Dark..
Elaborazione: Astroart8 e Paint Shop Pro2023.
www.cfm2004.altervista.org/astrofotografia/nebulose/rhoop...
Rho Ophiuchi Complex in Scorpio, Canon 200mm F1.8, Sony A7s (CentralDS modded and cooled), IDAS-V4 filter, ISO3200, flat calibration, Avalon M-Uno, 2015-06-06, Tenerife 1200m
This part of the sky is one of the most colourful region in the sky. This area is about 4.5 x 6.5 degrees across the sky and lies between Ophiuchus & Scorpius constellations. This complex nebulosity cloud is composed of dust & gases that can produce 3,000 suns of our solar system. It consists of one of the closest star forming clouds and lies about 460ly from the Earth. It contains many celestial objects like large star clusters M4 and small star cluster NGC 6144. The yellow-brown star is Antares, which is a super giant star near its end of life. The yellowish cloud around Antares is caused by puffing star’s material to the space. The dark lanes in the image are dark nebulae that hide the stars behind it. I planned to image this beautiful part of the sky by two different lenses. The first one was taken by Canon 100mm f/2.8 camera lens for a wide view of the region and the second one for close-up view was taken by Redcat51 f/4.9. Actually, the close-up image revealed a lot of details of the complex cloud. For both images ZWO ASI 2600MC cooled @ -10 degree. The image subs are 180 sec exposure and the total integration for both images are around 1 hr, 20 Darks, 20 Bias and 20 Flats. Gear setup: iOptron SkyGuider pro unguided, ASIair, Baader UHC-S 2” Filter. Images processed by PS 2020 CC.
During my May vacation, the weather in central Europe was as foul as it can get. Nothing but wind and rain in the forecast for a whole week.
After checking all my options, I decided to drive to central Italy, as Tuscany was the closest region, where the forecast at least showed a chance for clear skies.
I took the decision in the early morning and an 8 hours drive was needed to get there. My pre-planning was therefore marginal. After finding a place to sleep and having a (great) dinner, I headed to this famous spot and captured the rising Milky Way over Podere Belvedere - probably the most photographed farm in the region, if not in whole Europe.
I was very surprised that I was the only photographer doing nightscapes there and I took the chance to create this extensive focus stack. As light pollution was rather bad, I used my light pollution filter to increase contrast.
After finishing this shot, I headed to the famous group cypresses, where I found a real frenzy of activity. While setting up my gear next to some local astrophotographers, they started teasing me that I was late for the party. When I told them that I had been shooting the Milky Way over Podere Belvedere first, they chuckeled even more and told me that it was impossible to capture a decent Milky Way shot from there. Instead of arguing, I just showed them the RAWs on my cameras LCD. Now the chuckles were gone and they said "Oh, we'll have to try that as well..."
Lesson learned:
Sometimes, if you come to a place as a clueless outsider without extensively researching it, you might succeed in capturing a composition, because you had no idea that it was known to be impossible.
Prints available:
EXIF
Canon EOS 6D astro modified
Sigma 35mm f1.4 ART
iOptron SkyTracker Pro
nachtlicht° light pollution filter
Foreground:
- 6 panel focus stack
- each panel a stack of 3 x 40s @ISO1600 f/1.4
Sky:
Stack of 5 x 60s @ISO1600 f/2.8, tracked
Nikon d810a
85mm
ISO 3200
f/2
Foreground: 25 x 25 seconds
Sky: 167 x 20 seconds
H-Alpha: 18 x 60 seconds
This is a 210 shot panorama of the Milky Way and the setting Moon at Green Head, 3 hours north of Perth in Western Australia. The Moon can be seen peaking through the 'window' of Window Rock, a rocky outcrop just off shore at one of the several beaches in the area. I had planned this image several years ago but the conditions required for the shot have never been favourable until this season. I took the foreground shots first, just before the Moon had set then captured the sky shots after it had set.
The prominent red parts of the image are hydrogen alpha emitting regions captured thanks to a special filter that isolates that part of the spectrum. On the far right, just above the horizon, is the Cygnus region which includes the North America Nebula. Near the centre is Zeta Ophiuchi and to the left of that is the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex.
A 15-panel mosaic of the Milky Way Core region and greater Rho Ophiuchi region captured at Cherry Springs State Park in northern PA on August 5, 2021. Each panel consists of 3 x 90" exposures shot with a Nikon D750 and Rokinon 85mm lens at f/3.2 and ISO 1600. The Rho Ophiuchi panel was shot with the same camera/lens combo back on May 13, 2021 and the exposure settings were 43 x 60" @ f/2.8. This panel has a higher signal-to-noise ratio and was blended in to allow for more stretching of the faint nebulae/dust in this portion of the sky. Cherry Springs is a Bortle 2 location and the conditions were quite good on both nights.
I hope you enjoy the image! Feel free to find me on Instagram if you wish - @dm_astro
Clear skies!!
This system rides low on my southern horizon on late June evenings. it had been over a decade since last last effort.
Testing the 600mm F/4 SMC Takumar for wide-field astrophotography.
1 hour exposure on Fujifilm Neopan Acros 100 film.
Pentax 6x7 600mm SMC Takumar @ f/5.6
Rho Ophiuchi (ρ Ophiuchi / ρ Oph) is a star in the constellation Ophiuchus. 395 light-years away from Earth, it is associated with one of the closest star-forming regions, the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud. Rho Ophiuchi appears in the night sky as a star of magnitude +4.63, therefore visible to the naked eye as long as you have a perfectly dark and clear sky. It is observable in the southwestern region of the constellation, almost on the border with Scorpius, three degrees north of the bright Antares and just NE of σ Scorpii.
Located 23° south of the celestial equator, ρ Ophiuchi is a star in the southern hemisphere. Despite this, its possibilities of observation in the northern hemisphere are quite wide: it is in fact observable up to the 67th parallel N, that is, up to the Arctic Circle; only most of Greenland, the northernmost regions of Canada and Russia, as well as Iceland and parts of Sweden and Norway are excluded. However, in the regions of northern Europe, southern Canada and central Russia, it will appear very low on the southern horizon and visible only for a few hours. The possibilities of observation improve as you move towards the temperate and tropical regions of the northern hemisphere. On the other hand, this same declination implies that the star is circumpolar only further south than the 67th parallel S, that is, only in the regions of the Antarctic continent.
The best time for observation coincides with the months of the boreal summer, since the Sun is on the opposite side of the ecliptic; particularly in the weeks around the end of May and the beginning of June ρ Ophiuchi is visible throughout the night. In contrast, in the weeks between late November and early December the star is not visible at all due to very close sunlight; This period of invisibility lasts longer in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere, due to the southern declination of the star.
The Galactic Core of the Milky Way rises above snow covered Mt. Katahdin and the other mountains of northern Maine. I shot this at 50mm so the mountains wouldn’t be just tiny specks, and to get a lot of detail in the Galactic Core.
At 50mm the pink nebulae around the core also become much more visible, including the Lagoon Nebula (largest pink spot center-left in the sky), as well as the Trifid Nebula, Eagle Nebula, and Swan Nebula. The bright star Antares and others around the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex are visible in the upper right.
Nikon Z 6 with NIKKOR Z 50mm f/1.8 S lens @ f/1.8, ISO 6400. Star stack of 20 x 4 second exposures for sharp stars and low noise. I stacked the raw files in Starry Landscape Stacker (Mac only but you can do this with Sequator on Windows), then did some basic edits on the resulting file in Lightroom Classic, and then final edits for really bringing out detail in the Milky Way in Photoshop.
The few reflections of stars in the open area of water on the lake blurred far too much with the stacking, and treating the water as the "sky" in Starry Landscape Stacker didn't work because there simply aren't enough stars in the reflection for the software to properly align the reflections. So to get a lower noise version of the reflections I manually aligned and stacked 10 of the sky photos in Photoshop, moving the layers a few pixels at a time to get the reflections to line up between shots. I could have used all 20 shots but 10 was more than enough for just the little bits of reflection that I needed. Averaging that stack resulted in a lower noise version of the reflections, and I was able to mask them into the final shot with a combination of using the lighten blend mode and manual masking of just the reflected starlight.
Visit my website to learn more about my photos and video tutorials: www.adamwoodworth.com
I finally managed to finish processing this beauty. This was a complicated capture with wind, gear malfunctions, and of course haze. This area of milky way doesn't stay above the horizon very long either (at least in this part of the world) limiting the exposure time.
I managed to get 23 7 minute frames over two nights totalling to just under 3 hours exposure time - much less than what I was hoping to accomplish. But I was able to extract reasonable amount of data from the stacked image.
You can clearly see the central region of milky way with M8 Lagoon Nebula (purple blob in the left centre), M20 Trifid Nebula just above it (pale blue). In the top left corner you can see M16 Eagle Nebula and M17 Omega Nebula.
Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex covers the right hand side of the image. The Dark River Nebula (B44) extendes all the way from Milky Way to this cloud complex.
And finally Saturn shines brightly over the black dust clouds in the centre of the image.
The spectacular area around the Galactic Centre of the Milk Way in Scorpius (at right) and Sagittarius (at left) as shot from Australia with this area nearly overhead in the wee hours of an April morning. ..Saturn is left of centre. Yellow Antares is right of centre. ..The region is rich in nebulas and star clusters. The Dark Horse and Pipe Nebula is above centre. The Sagittarius Starcloud is left of centre. The Small Sagittarius Starcloud, M24, is at upper left in the Milky Way. ..This is a stack of 5 x 3-minute exposures with the 35mm Canon L-Series lens at f/2.8 and filter-modified Canon 5D MkII at ISO 1600, with an additional exposure taken through the Kenko Softon A filter layered in to add the star glows.
Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex and Dark Horse Neb ,The Dark Horse Nebula or Great Dark Horse is a large dark nebula that, from Earth's perspective, obscures part of the upper central bulge of the Milky Way. The Dark Horse lies in the equatorial constellation Ophiuchus, near its borders with the more famous constellations Scorpius and Sagittarius. 23 x 20 sec shots with Canon 5DSr and an old MF Nikon 50mm lens.
Looking up to the stars gives me a magical feeling, but sharing it with friends who share the same passion makes it unforgettable. On this shot you see the milky way shot on a focal length of 70mm. The amount of detail is insane !
This panorama takes in a roughly 180° sweep of the Milky Way:
— from Sagittarius, Scorpius and the Galactic Centre at left,
— to Orion, Gemini and near the galactic anti-centre at right.
At far left we are looking toward the centre of our galaxy; at far right we are looking toward its outer edge, from our location in one of the outer spiral arms of the Milky Way, in a spur off the Cygnus Arm. At centre we are looking into the adjacent Carina and Centaurus arms.
The panorama frames the full extent of southernmost reaches of the Milky Way that can be seen only from, or best from, southern latitudes, in the tropics or the southern hemisphere.
The southern extent of the Milky Way includes the constellations of (from L to R) Lupus, Centaurus, Crux, Carina, Vela and Puppis across the central area of the panorama, a region rich in red emission nebulas and dark lanes of interstellar dust. The largest nebula is the vast pink Gum Nebula in Vela and Puppis near centre, a huge bubble of glowing hydrogen similar to the arc of Barnard's Loop around Orion at right.
But the Milky Way is dotted with many other bright emission nebulas, such as (from L to R): the Lagoon, Cat's Paw (both at far left), the Running Chicken, Eta Carinae (both near centre), the Seagull, the Rosette (both at far right), and the Angel Fish in the head of Orion. At top left are the stars of the head of Scorpius and the colourful nebulas around Antares and Rho Ophiuchi.
The dark dust lanes at left make up the aboriginal Dark Emu constellation, with her head being the Coal Sack near the Southern Cross left of centre, and her neck being the curving lane of dust that splits the Milky Way in Centaurus at left. At far left are the angled lanes that make up the Dark Horse in the Milky Way.
Of note are the various colours of the Milky Way, varying from blue (at right) to, to redder (at centre), to yellow (at left), the latter from absorption of short wavelengths by the greater amount of dust toward the centre of the galaxy, and also from the presence of more older, yellow Population II stars toward the galactic core.
The two brightest stars in the panorama are also the two brightest stars in the night sky: Canopus at the bottom edge and Sirius at right. Procyon and the pair of Castor and Pollux are at upper right.
The Southern Cross and the Pointer stars of Alpha and Beta Centauri are left of centre, while the False Cross stars are just below centre to the left of the Gum Nebula. The white "star" above the Southern Cross and Pointers is the large globular cluster Omega Centauri. The blue stars at left above the Milky Way belong to the Scorpius-Centaurus OB Association of young, hot stars.
Technical:
This is a panorama of 11 segments, each a stack of 8 to 12 exposures, of 2 or 3 minutes each, with the Canon RF28-70mm lens at f/2.2 or f/2.8 (I varied the settings during the shoot) and at 35mm focal length, and with the camera turned in portrait orientation across the Milky Way. I used the red-sensitive Canon Ra camera at ISO 800. The lens had an URTH 95mm Night broadband light pollution reduction filter to help contrast. A ballhead with a rotation axis above the ball facilitated moving the camera from segment to segment along the Milky Way with a single motion, keeping the galactic equator centered.
I shot the segments on one long night in March 2024, shooting from the Warrumbungles Mountain Motel near Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia, at the OzSky star party. Pre-dawn clouds rolling in, plus dawn itself, and an annoying nearby tree prevented more exposures up the Milky Way to the north at left, to frame more of the galactic centre area. Ditto on sky glow at right in the early evening preventing more exposures north of (below in the Oz sky) Orion into Auriga, a region quite low from this latitude of 32° South. In fact, the sky glow in the upper right corner is likely Zodiacal Light. Extending the panorama requires exposures at another time and/or site and latitude.
Segments were processed initially in Adobe Camera Raw, stacked and aligned in Photoshop, and then stitched into the panorama with PTGui, which did a better job at blending segments than Photoshop's Photomerge command. Applications of luminosity-masked Curves, the Photokemi Nebula Filter action, and the Nik Collection Color EFX Detail Extractor filter all helped bring out the nebulas. I also applied a mild Soft Focus filter to add a touch of glow for artistic effect! I did not use a starglow diffusion filter on the lens, nor any narrowband filter such as an H-Alpha filter.
The original is 21,100 by 6,500 pixels.
This captures a 180° panorama of the rich and colourful summer Milky Way over the iconic Sweetgrass Hills of Montana, specifically the West Butte, but as seen looking south from Alberta, from the Sunset Point viewpoint at Writing-on-Stone (Aisinai'pi) Provincial Park. From this latitude of 49º N the lower tail of Scorpius never rises above the horizon and the deep sky objects that are visible here appear low.
In the valley below winds the Milk River which flows into the Missouri River watershed and into the Gulf of Mexico. The buildings are the restored barracks of the North West Mounted Police, built at the mouth of Police Coulee in the late 1800s to guard against illegal whiskey-trading Americans!
An arc of yellow-green airglow tints the sky. Yellow Antares and some of the stars of Scorpius are reflected in the river at right.
The bright star at right is the red giant (here looking yellow) Antares. The region around Antares is rich in red/magenta emission and blue reflection nebulas. However, unusually, the nebula around Antares itself looks yellow. Below Antares in the large red nebula RCW 129, from the Rodgers-Campbell-Whiteoak catalogue. Above it is the blue Rho Ophiuchi nebula, aka IC 4604, and the pink Sharpless 2-9. Above them is the Blue Horsehead Nebula, aka IC 4592. At top is the vast red Zeta Ophiuchi Nebula, aka Sharpless 2-27.
Above centre is the complex of dark dusty nebulas that make up the Dark Prancing Horse, itself made of many "B" objects from E.E. Barnard's catalogue of dark nebulas. The most prominent is called the Pipe Nebula, at bottom, made of B78 and B59.
At centre, the Milky Way is populated by many star clusters and nebulas, most from the 18th century catalogue of Charles Messier. The bright Lagoon (M8) and small Trifid (M20) Nebulas are left of the Pipe Nebula. Above them is the Small Sagittarius Starcloud, aka M24, flanked by the star clusters M23 to the right and M25 to the left.
Above them is the pink Swan Nebula (M17) and Eagle Nebula (M16), with a diffuse red nebula Sharpless 2-54 above the Eagle.
At upper left is the Scutum Starcloud and the Wild Duck Cluster, M11. At top left is the star Altair in Aquila.
At bottom, just above the Hills, is the main Sagittarius Starcloud, in the direction of the Galactic Centre, with the star clusters M6 and M7 in Scorpius just rising above West Butte. Just above the horizon is a suite of three nebulas, from bottom to top: the Cat's Paw (NGC 6334); the Lobster (NGC 6357); and the large RCW 132.
It should be emphasized that apart from the bright Lagoon Nebula, none of these nebulas, as colourful as they are here, can be seen with the unaided eye. The long exposures and special filters reveal them, just as the long exposures bring out the landscape details lit only by starlight.
Technical:
This is a blend of:
- a stitch of 10 untracked segments for the ground (with generous overlap; I could have shot just 5 segments)
- with a stitch of 5 tracked segments for the sky taken immediately after without changing tripod position, or camera tilt.
Segments were stitched with Adobe Camera Raw. All were taken with the Canon RF28-70mm lens at 28mm and wide open at f/2 for 2 minutes on the astro-modified Canon EOS R at ISO 800, in portrait orientation. On the Star Adventurer Mini tracker, with an Alyn Wallace V-Plate. The lens had an URTH Night broadband light pollution filter on it to improve contrast.
To those base "normal light" ground and sky panoramas I layered in and aligned a panorama of 5 segments taken through a 12nm Astronomik H-Alpha filter (it clips inside the camera in front of the sensor) to pick up just the dim red nebulas. Those exposures were 2 minutes at f/2 but at ISO 1600. I processed that H-a pano as a monochrome image, then colourized it red-pink with a Hue & Saturation layer. I removed the stars from it with RCAstro's Star XTerminator plug-in.
The original is 11,100 by 6,500 pixels.
Taken on a superb and perfect night, May 24, 2025. I used The Photographer's Ephemeris and TPE3D apps to plan the location and timing for this juxtaposition of land and sky. i.e. the stars and nebulas really were above the Sweetgrass Hills – this is not a composite created by pasting in a Milky Way sky from another time and place. Nor is the foreground from a "blue hour" shot from earlier in the evening. While this is a real scene, it is not as your eyes would have seen it.
Rho ophiuchi + Saturn + Milkway (Wide angle): The Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex is a remarkable rich and colorful region in the constellation .Its is at distance of about 500 light years,
There's no more colorful area of the deep-sky than this field in the head of Scorpius. A mix of red and magenta emission nebulas combine with blue reflection nebulas, and unique to this field, a yellow reflection nebula around the red giant star Antares at bottom. Dark dust lanes glow brown and yellow as well.
This frames the Rho Ophiuchi complex of dust lanes and reflection nebulas above Antares. At top is IC 4592, aka the Blue Horsehead Nebula. At bottom right are faint wisps of blue reflection nebulas catalogued as Sharpless 2-1. Beside Antares is the large globular cluster Messier 4.
The stars at right are the trio of stars that form the head of Scorpius: from top to bottom – Beta, Delta and Pi Scorpii. Beta is aka Graffias and Delta is aka Dschubba.
This is a stack of 16 x 2-minute exposures with the Canon RF135mm lens at f/2 on the Canon Ra camera at ISO 800, tracked on the Astro-Physics AP400 mount. The lens had an 82mm URTH Night broadband filter on it. Taken before dawn on March 13, 2024 from the Warrumbungles Mountain Motel near Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia.