The Heart of the Milky Way, from Nambucca Heads

[iceman (Mike)]

Hi all

Here's an image taken on Monday night, 30th June, from Nambucca Heads. We're here for planetary imaging, but the seeing wasn't good on this night - so I chose to do some piggyback widefield shots.

I used the Canon 350D + Sigma 17-70mm lens, guided with the DMK21AU04 through an 80mm refractor on the EQ6 (using PHD guiding).

The image is made from 26 exposures @ 400s each (almost 3 hours total exposure time), ISO800, 62mm focal length, f/5.6.
9 darks were subtracted (I didn't use ICNR!) and flats calibrated too.

ImagesPlus used for calibration and minor DDP processing, followed by some minor processing in Photoshop.

A 1200px wide, less compressed version can be found on my gallery:
The Heart of the Milky Way

Thanks for looking.

[Ric]

A fantastic looking widefield Mike.

The star clouds are that dense it almost looks like you were photographing normal white clouds.

Top stuff

[renormalised (Carl)]

Great piccie, Mike. Nice wide field

[Matty P (Matt)]

Beautiful widefield shot Mike, the larger version is lovely.

Very well done.

[TrevorW]

Ace, ace!!!

[skeltz (Rob)]

Nice shot mike,that is certainly one chock a block image!

[Dennis]

That’s very nice Mike – a marathon effort indeed! The dust lanes, dark rivers and folds of nebulosity are shown exceptionally well.

Cheers

Dennis

[acropolite (Phil)]

Beautiful image Mike.

[RB (Andrew)]

That's beautiful Mike, I really like the golden hues.

[iceman (Mike)]

Thanks guys, appreciate your comments.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Lovely

For a gun planetary imager, you have done some nice wide shots of the Milky Way Mike....I need a DSLR

Mike

[h0ughy (David)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Lovely

....I need a DSLR

Mike

now there is the quote of the century

nice work mr salway

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

....I need a DSLR

Or a nice Pentax 6X7 lens set, these will then reach focus with my big black supercooling CCD brick. A DSLR would be easier and more convenient to use of course

[Dietmar]

...very cool shot, Mike!

[dugnsuz (Doug)]

Very nice widefield Mike.
Cheers
Doug

[Tilt (Michael)]

No ICNR this time

Its a deep image, well done.

[Rodstar (Rod)]

Always great to see the Lagoon and Triffid in their regional context! What an amazing array of material choking our galactic space!