One of the most beautiful areas of the night sky visible from the Northern Hemisphere, the Rho-Ophiuchi Nebula Complex shows off a myriad of colors in this natural light image captured through LRGB filters. There are also a number of globular clusters visible in the image, the most prominent example being M4, almost directly below the very bright star Antares, which is located in the bright golden area of the image. Equipment: ZWO ASI1600MM-C Camera @ -15C and Gain:74 Offset: 12 Software Bisque MyT Mount Canon 70-300 f/4-5.6 L IS at 135mm and f/5.6 (via step down ring) Software: Pixinsight Commercial Version 1.8 Lightroom CC Photoshop CC Light Frames: Luminance: 44 x 90 secs (66 mins) Red: 10 x 150 secs (25 mins) Green: 11 x 150 secs (27.5 mins) Blue: 10 x 150 secs (25 mins) Dark Frames: 20 x 90 secs (30 mins) 20 x 150 secs (50 mins) Details about The Rho-Ophiuchi Cloud Complex From Wikipedia: The Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex is a dark nebula of gas and dust that is located 1° south of the star ρ Ophiuchi of the constellation Ophiuchus. At an estimated distance of 131 ± 3 parsecs,[2][4] this cloud is one of the closest star-forming regions to the Solar System.[5] Additional details can be found at this Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rho_Ophiuchi_cloud_complex
This was shot under local light polluted skies, and there were some high clouds that reduced contrast as well. But shooting in narrowband, I was still able to get some signal. I would like to try this object again in the future potentially under darker skies when I can also get more subframes. The Tadpoles Nebula is named for the 2 little squiggles that look like tadpoles, shown in to the right of center in my image. This dusty star forming region lies approximately 12,000 light years away, and is part of a larger region that also includes the Flaming Star Nebula. Equipment: ZWO ASI1600MM-C Camera @ -15C and Gain:139 Offset:21 Software Bisque MyT Mount Stellarvue SVQ100 Astrograph Refractor, 580mm @ f/5.8 Software: Pixinsight Commercial Version 1.8 Lightroom CC Photoshop CC Light Frames: Ha: 5 x 300 secs (25 mins) OIII: 4 x 300 secs (20 mins) Dark Frames: 20 x 300 secs (1 hr 40 mins)
This a narrowband image of the Eastern Veil (also known as Caldwell 33), whose brightest area is NGC 6992, which is part of a much larger nebula complex known as the Veil Nebula, a supernova remnant. This image is created using data collected through Ha, OIII, and SII narrowband filters, to bring out complex details and enhance contrast. Since some of the wavelengths emitted are not detected by the human eye, and the object itself is too faint to detect visually, the colors are an artificial mix, created by arbitrarily assigned the different filtered wavelengths of light to visible colors of the spectrum. This 'mix' is just the one I found to be pleasing, and it also gives the charicteristic reddish colors for the Ha areas and the teal colors for the OIII regions. The color mix used is: Red: 76% Ha, 24% SII Green: 100% OIII Blue: 95% OIII, 5% Ha Equipment: ZWO ASI1600MM-C Camera @ -15C and Gain:139 Offset:21 Software Bisque MyT Mount Stellarvue SVQ100 Astrograph Refractor, 580mm @ f/5.8 Software: Pixinsight Commercial Version 1.8 Lightroom CC Photoshop CC Light Frames: Ha: 8 x 360 secs (48 mins) OIII: 7 x 360 secs (42 mins) SII: 7 x 360 secs (42 mins) Dark Frames: 8 x 360 secs (48 mins) More details from Wikipedia: The Veil Nebula is a cloud of heated and ionized gas and dust in the constellation Cygnus. It constitutes the visible portions of the Cygnus Loop (radio source W78, or Sharpless 103), a large but relatively faint supernova remnant. The source supernova exploded circa 3,000 BC to 6,000 BC, and the remnants have since expanded to cover an area roughly 3 degrees in diameter (about 6 times the diameter, or 36 times the area, of the full moon). The distance to the nebula is not precisely known, but Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) data supports a distance of about 1,470 light-years.[2]
