Another winter gem but not often imaged, this fabulous colourful red and blue bit of sky is located in one of the claws of Scorpius, not far from the more well known Rho Ophiuchus dust cloud around Antares. It combines lots of faint dusty blue reflection nebulae (Vdb99), spread across the field like spider web, with an extensive field of faint red H-alpha emission nebula (Sharpless 2-1).
The autoguiding was superb aaall night, both nights, with the guide star seldom deviating more than 0.2 arc sec (at the limit of Astroarts autoguiding resolution of 0.05pix), and my mate Attila brought his awesome 3 inch achromat out and we had a ball observing with it for several hours while the FSQ imaged, incredible how much fun can be had and what you can see with just a 3 inch scope!
Beautifully subtle image - Gossamer like diaphanous veils of O3 wafting across the calm background seas of Ha, with pinpoint stars resembling lighthouses for celestial ships to safely navigate their passage.
Beautifully subtle image - Gossamer like diaphanous veils of O3 wafting across the calm background seas of Ha, with pinpoint stars resembling lighthouses for celestial ships to safely navigate their passage.
Superb optics and superb guiding. The field stars are all pin-points.
The soft and gentle nebulosity makes for a very different image.
Sounds like much fun was had too!
Thanks Mike and Trish, yes I think I have the quintessential amateur wide field rig, I am very lucky and feel so privileged Yes my current arrangement for imaging means each session is a whole traditional experience, out under the stars away from home and it is pretty cool fun. We are still in the market and looking for a dark sky property to move to (have been for nearly 2 years! ) when I eventually have my own observatory in my own back yard and automate my dome I will set things up so I can curl up with a red wine or beer inside with Angie and watch Netflix, while the rig chugs away outside ....eventually
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Originally Posted by Slawomir
It’s great you had fun Mike looking through a scope with a good friend - is that frost on the ground?
The image is superb, colours and sharpness top notch, but, perhaps, maybe a 2x2 mosaic would reveal the area in a fuller glory? Just teasing of course
Thanks so much Suavi and yes I love it when Attila comes out to my observatory, he only comes occasionally but we have a lot of history from our younger days and we always have a ball, beats being all alone for hours on end listening to the radio...although I do also enjoy the solitude and peace on a crisp clear moonless night with the Milky Way overhead and wee dram in hand, very cathartic
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Originally Posted by codemonkey
Beautiful, Mike!
Cheers Lee
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Originally Posted by multiweb
Beautiful field. We had some good seeing lately where it was clear.
Yes, the good thing about imaging at 3.5"/pix, I hardly ever notice the seeing from my location
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Originally Posted by Andy01
Beautifully subtle image - Gossamer like diaphanous veils of O3 wafting across the calm background seas of Ha, with pinpoint stars resembling lighthouses for celestial ships to safely navigate their passage.
Top shelf Sir Strongness
nice prose Andy...except, there is no OIII, that's blue refection nebula This is a true colour LHaRGB image ...does look a bit like a narrow band HaOIIIOIII bi-colour image though huh?
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Originally Posted by ChrisV
That's a stunning piece of sky. Quite incredible
I agree Chris, I just pressed a few button and clicked on a few menus, aaaand turned the dome, crawled under the counterweight bar in the dark many times, avoided hiting anything in the dark in a cramped dome, etc etc ....the Universe did the rest
Great shot Mike! It looks much better on my laptop than it does on my mobile
The strangeness of this field is that it visually looks like the blue nebula is closer than the red (floating above the red emission) but it's really the other way around!
Great shot Mike! It looks much better on my laptop than it does on my mobile
The strangeness of this field is that it visually looks like the blue nebula is closer than the red (floating above the red emission) but it's really the other way around!
I wondered that myself but I cant find anything on the distances to each neb, in fact it is confusing which catalogue each nebula belongs too Sh or Vdb..?
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Originally Posted by beren
brilliant again Mike, beautiful color just spot on congrats