Antares - Rho Ophiuchi region

[john_drummond (John Drummond)]

Hi all,

it's been a while since I posted an image on IIS so here's a recent one of the Antares region. I took it with my SBIG STL11000M CCD and Sigma 70-200mm lens. 10 minute sublights - 15 x lum, 6 RGB...

http://www.possumobservatory.co.nz/a...n_drummond.jpg
or
http://tinyurl.com/ysj9pw

Cheers

John Drummond
Possum Observatory (IAU Code: E94)
Gisborne, New Zealand
E 177° 53', S 38° 38'
Email: john_drummond@xtra.co.nz
Website: http://www.possumobservatory.co.nz
Images: http://www.possumobservatory.co.nz/l...continuing.htm

[davidpretorius]

what a beautiful array of colours!

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Wow, fantastic image John!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!

Hard to believe all that stuff is sitting around the orange star we know as Antares. In my 12" I get to see some nice Antares Neb, but that is unbelievable!!!

You have captured just about every colour imaginable!!!

[h0ughy (David)]

great work, how did you cut out Jupiter? must have been close?

[leon]

Now that is really brilliant, cant imagine all those colours up there, well done.

Leon

[jase (Jason)]

Nice image John.

It is certainly a colourful area of the sky and well suited to wide field vistas like you’ve exhibited. This can be a difficult area to process because of the vast variations in colour and brightness. Your colours are good, but in my opinion over saturated. Antares has taken on an unnatural yellow flare and the overall sky background has a blue hue to it. The latter is due to black clipping in the green channel, so you’ve lost some data there.

I’m very impressed by the FOV of the STL11k mounted on your sigma lens.

Look forward to seeing more of your images.

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Nice one John.

I'm interested to know how you go about focusing the SBIG with colour filter wheel with the canon lens. I was under the impression that the lens wouldn't come to focus with it being so far from the chip using a filter wheel. At least that is the case with the ST 7XME and CFW-9 filterwheel and Mogg EOS adapter.

[john_drummond (John Drummond)]

Hi all,

thanks for your very kind replies. Much appreciated.

Paul, I achieved focus by having a VERY short adapter ring made by a local precision engineer. Works well. HOWEVER, after your comment I just realised that with a new STL 8 filter wheel that I'm getting it may NOT focus anymore (adds 1/3 ")! AARRGGHH!!!!

Jase, thanks for the comments. Did we meet at the SPSP in March? Sorry if this is a strange question...

BTW, we are having our annual RASNZ Astrophotography camp in early October 2007 if any 'West Islanders' want to come - it's at a dark site 11km from Gisborne (East Coast, North Island). See:

http://www.possumobservatory.co.nz/g...ering-2007.htm
or
http://tinyurl.com/2udb3b

Cheers

John Drummond
NZ

[iceman (Mike)]

Lovely image John, nice to see you here again. Enjoyed catching up with you at SPSP!

Hope to see you back here with more images soon!

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Thanks John. I hope you get your adapter length sorted out.

[JohnH]

John, stunning, simply stunning...

[Dr Nick (Nick)]

Wow! Brilliant! Amazing! What else can I say? Thats awesome!