Southern Cross, Pointers and Eta Carinae

[iceman]

This is a beautiful part of the sky – distinctly southern and also distinctly Australian. I was feeling patriotic at the time, as it was ANZAC Day and so I wanted to capture this image as my small tribute to our service men and women.

It’s the beautiful Crux (Southern Cross) area of the sky, featuring Eta Carinae nebula (top right), the Southern Cross and the Coalsack (middle) and the Pointers (alpha and beta centauri) bottom left. The best globular cluster in the sky (Omega Centauri) also makes an appearance as the bright ‘star’ in the top left.

Shot with my 50mm lens, no tracking, on a Canon 6D. Just 13s exposure at ISO6400, f/2.8.

- Large (http://www.mikesalway.com.au/download/552)
- Blog (http://www.mikesalway.com.au/southern-cross-pointers-eta-carinae/)

Thanks for looking!

[batema]

Lovely.

[Amaranthus]

Great Mike, extremely sharp.

I tried a framing of this almost exact same area last Friday:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=120363

But I did a stack of 25 sec subs at ISO 1600, with darks, flats etc. Result was nice, but not as clear as this one.

Would I have done better to do a single sub at a high ISO like you've done here? (my min f-stop is f/3.5 on my Sony NEX).

[atalas]

Lovely shot Mike!

[astronobob]

Wow Mike, thats gotta be a near record amount of light for 13 seconds, luv to see a 20 or 30 ,, :thumbsup: Really showing some grouse star colors and neb patches, top capturing :thumbsup:

[Camelopardalis]

Wow, lovely shot Mike, very detailed!

[Asterix2020]

You description sums it up nicely. Nice image.

[SimmoW]

Wow you must be in some lovely dark skies! Nice broad shot. A beautiful part of the heavens.

[LightningNZ]

Well that's a lovely pic.

It's funny, but on my screen Alpha Cen looks kinda pink. Could that be chromatic aberration?

Cheers,
Cam

[gregbradley]

Very nice Mike. Surprisingly deep for only 13 seconds and nice and clean.

Great colours.

Greg.

[Regulus]

A nice photo for such a short exposure Mike.
Do u use 'in camera' noise reduction or do it in software afterwards when u use high ISO settings?

Trev

[cazza132]

Sweet shot. Love the composition - from Alpha Centuri to Eta Carina - some of the most profound goodies we have in our great southern land. Glad to be in the southern hemisphere! Gotta love that 6D!!!! For such a high iso, very good star colours. Smashing ISO 6400 with true colours. 13s - could not have done that with a DSLR a few years ago.

[ourkind]

Great shot!