A quiescent arc of Northern Lights, or aurora borealis, across the northern horizon from home on February 1, 2021. The W of Cassiopeia is at top left; the familiar Big Dipper is at top right. Polaris in the Little Dipper, or Ursa Minor, is above centre. Cassiopeia and the Big Dipper are nicely placed at this time on a February evening flanking Polaris at an equal altitude, in the northwest and in the northeast. The Milky Way runs down the left side of the frame This is a single 30-second untracked exposure with the Sony a7III at ISO 1600, and with the Venus Optics Laowa 15mm lens wide open at f/2.
This is a portrait of the main glowing nebulas amid star clusters in Monoceros, the Unicorn. The main nebula at bottom is the Rosette Nebula, aka NGC 2237-9/45 surrounding the star cluster NGC 2244. But in this long exposure streams of nebulas extend north to connect to a large region of diffuse nebulosity around the Christmas Tree Cluster, NGC 2264, with the main nebula at top catalogued as Sharpless 2-273 and containing a region of bright blue reflection nebulosity. Just below that blue nebula is the dark, conical Cone Nebula. Just below it is the tiny (on this scale) Hubble's Variable Nebula, NGC 2261, a small bright triangular patch. The blue reflection nebula at upper right is IC 2169, surrounded by other smaller patches of reflection nebulosity including NGC 2245 and IC 446. The V-shaped dark nebula at top is LDN 1603. The star cluster just below that is Trumpler 5. This is a stack of 8 x 12-minute exposures at ISO 3200 through an Optolong L-Enhance narrow-band nebula filter, blended with a stack of 8 x 8-minute exposures without a filter (for more natural star colors and the blue reflection nebulas) at ISO 800. All were with the Canon EOS Ra camera through the f/5 51mm William Optics RedCat astrograph with a Starizona filter drawer. Autoguiding was with the Lacerta MGEN3 autoguider which applied a dithering shift between each frame to help cancel out thermal noise when stacking. No darks or LENR were used here on this mild winter night at -5° C or so. All stacking, alignment and blending was in Adobe Photoshop 2021. Luminosity masks (DM2, D and M) applied with Lumenzia helped bring out the faint nebulosity.
This is a portrait of the main glowing nebulas amid star clusters in central Auriga, the Charioteer. The main nebula at right is the Flaming Star Nebula, aka IC 405. But in this long exposure its mass blends into the central roundish nebula, IC 410. At top left is the pair of Sharpless nebulas, Sh 2-232 and the small Sh 2-235. The fingerlike nebula at top centre is Sh 2-230. The star cluster just to its left is Messier 38, with the small cluster NGC 1907 just below M38. The star cluster at left centre is Messier 36. At centre frame is the nebula IC 417 around the cluster Stock 8. The line of colourful stars at lower right between IC 405 and IC 410 is the Little FIsh or Flying Minnow asterism, aka Mel 11. This is a stack of 11 x 12-minute exposures at ISO 3200 through an Optolong L-Enhance dual-band nebula filter, blended with a stack of 12 x 8-minute exposures without a filter (for more natural star colors and the blue reflection nebula in IC 405) at ISO 800. All with the Canon EOS Ra camera through the f/5 51mm William Optics RedCat astrograph with a Starizona filter drawer. Autoguiding was with the Lacerta MGEN3 autoguider which applied a dithering shift between each frame to help cancel out thermal noise when stacking. No darks or LENR were used here on this mild winter night at -5° C or so. All stacking, alignment and blending was in Adobe Photoshop 2021. Luminosity masks (DM2, D and M) applied with Lumenzia helped bring out the faint nebulosity.
