The dark river

[andyc (Andy)]

I took this on a less-than-ideal night recently on another test of off-axis guiding - here's the Snake Nebula meandering through the golden starfields of Ophiuchius. Cropped a bit from the full frame as I have a bit of an issue with strong gradients on the right side of the frame, and PixInsight struggled with star matching in the lower left of the frame leading to a little trailing (maybe due to so many stars, maybe due to two 11th-12th mag asteroids in that part of the frame). I'm still looking for cleaner backgrounds, so more work to do; comments and criticisms welcomed!

15 x 5 minutes, ISO800, EOS 60D, 150mm Newtonian.

Larger version here

[Ryderscope (Rodney)]

Nice catch Andy. Good contrast between the star field and the dark dust lanes. The hole on the right of the image almost looks 3D. This area of sky will present a challenge with gradients as well due to the rich star field.
(there is a minor typo in the description on pBase). I'd be happy with this one.

[BruceG (Bruce)]

Lovely field Andy. Looking good!
Bruce.

[rustigsmed (Russell)]

indeed, lovely result Andy!