The northern summer Milky Way through the area of the Summer Triangle, showing the change in colour as the Milky Way heads south toward the dustier regions around the galactic core. Deneb in Cygnus is at top, Vega in Lyra is to the upper right, and Altair in Aquila is at bottom. The dark lanes of the Cygnus Rift show up well, beginning in Cygnus and splitting the Milky Way in two on south. The most prominent deep sky objects all visible in binoculars are: - the dark nebula complex Le Gentil 3, aka the Funnel Nebula, at top left - the reddish North America Nebula beside Deneb - and the Serpens-Ophiuchus “Double Cluster” at bottom right consisting of IC 4756 (larger, at left) and NGC 6633 (right), good binocular star clusters. This is a stack of 10 exposures, each 3 minutes at f/2.8 with the Sigma 24mm Art lens, and Nikon D750 at ISO 1600. Exposures Median combined to eliminate satellite trails. The camera is not filter modified. It was on the new Mini Track LX2 wind-up tracker as part of testing. Taken from home July 14, 2018.
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.
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.
