Smoky Pipe and Snake

[andyc]

One more image from my trip to near Coonabarabran last week. The Pipe Nebula region is lovely for a rich even mass of stars in the Milky Way's bulge, behind the complex dusty foreground clouds. Quite a few globulars in there too.

A stack of 17 x 3-minute exposures with a Canon EOS 60D and 100mm Macro USM (lovely lens for widefield views), ISO640 and f/3.5, tracked on iOptron Skytracker. Processed in PixInsight and Photoshop.

Larger version here (http://www.pbase.com/andycasely/image/156870656/original), and a few other images from that trip are in this album (http://www.pbase.com/andycasely/widefield_deep_sky)

[smader]

Great effort with the tracker! Did you spend long polar aligning?

[RickS]

Very nice, Andy! I saw that region described as the Galactic Kiwi the other day and that's all I can see now when I look at it :)

[atalas]

Nice work Andy.

[Camelopardalis]

Beautiful Andy! So much contrast between the pipe and the surrounding star field :thumbsup:

[Regulus]

A nice photo of the region Andy with satisfying contrast.
Trev

[andyc]

Thanks everyone :) While I remember, this is also the area where Mars has its near miss with Comet Siding Spring in October, just below the bowl of the Pipe. For those with clear skies, that'll be a superb photo opportunity with the Pipe and Snake in the background, and no moon to worry about.



Thanks a lot Stacy! I've quite enjoyed using it, but it is slowly tempting me into going more advanced... and that's a dangerously deep rabbithole. I find polar aligning really very easy with the Skytracker. It helps that my old tripod happens to have a rotating turntable on the head, so that I don't have to rely on the Skytracker's azimuth control - but a combination of levelling it, locating the trapezoid asterism containing Sigma Octans, using the PolarFinder app to position Sigma Oct on the reticle - seems to work really effectively for me. From arriving at my observing site, it rarely takes me more than 5-10mins absolute max to have the mount aligned. And then the polar alignment drift errors are significantly smaller than the periodic error, which is the main limiter on my exposure lengths.



I saw that description too, it is awfully easy to see now!





The rich background does provide for great contrast with the dust, it's lovely. But if you want to feel very small, have a look at ESO's rendition of the mouthpiece of the Pipe (https://www.eso.org/public/australia/images/eso1233a/), especially the zoomable 15,000 x 15,000 pixel version, where the merest smudges in my picture are resolved into thousands of stars...

[troypiggo]

Nice ! Almost dead ringer for my recent one at 135mm with FF sensor. :) that 100 macro is a rockin lens.

[strongmanmike]

Yeah I agree that 100mm lens looks to be a great bit of kit, very nice wide field work there Andy :) The Pipe is really a pretty cool looking structure.

Mike

[Ross G]

Hi Andy,

A great looking wide photo. I can see so much detail in your shot.

Thanks for the comet news...something to look out for!

Ross.

[andyc]

:thumbsup:

Yep, I've no real idea how tiny, faint it'll be (forecast 8th mag-ish) or if it'll have much of a tail for people with equipment less than Damian Peach's shot from last week (http://www.damianpeach.com/deepsky/c2013_a1_2014_08_02dp.jpg) but we can always hope. It'll also thread the gap between the SMC and 47 Tucanae at the end of this month too.



Thanks Mike, it is an excellent sharp lens, would definitely recommend it. Though I took about five hours of slightly out-of-focus shots on the last night in Coona just to pull me back to reality after taking some peachy shots earlier in the week. Though that was less traumatic than the entire evening of shots in JPEG only mode...



I think you do your great photo (http://www.astrobin.com/full/109314/0/)a little disservice there, you could fit half a dozen of your star images into each one of mine, but thanks , I can't complain!

[Elio]

Love this wide field...