The Milky Way through the region of the tail of Scorpius and up into Sagittarius, photographed with it high in the sky from Australia. At bottom are the red nebulas of NGC 6334, the Cat’s Paw, and NGC 6357 (sometimes called the Lobster Nebula, for a “Paws and Claws” pairing). The clusters Messier 6 and Messier 7 are at left, below centre, with M7 lost in the star clouds of the Milky Way. The Galactic Centre lies at left centre. The Lagoon and Trifid Nebulas, M8 and M20, are at top left. Saturn is the bright star at top centre. The Dark Horse region of dark dust is at right, with the darkest part below being the Pipe Nebula, B78. This is a stack of 5 x 2-minute exposures at f/2.8 with the Rokinon 85mm lens, and filter-modified Canon 5D MkII at ISO 2500. Taken from Tibuc Gardens Cottage near Coonabarabran, Australia. The image could be turned 90° CCW to better resemble its orientation in the sky in which it was photographed in the southern hemisphere, This orientation matches the view in the northern hemisphere.
The long-period variable star, Mira, in Cetus, here at right about a month after maximum brightness, when it was about magnitude 3. The star spends most of its roughly 330-day period too faint to see with the unaided eye. Mira is also Omicron Ceti. It was named Mire, Latin for “wonderful” by Johannes Hevelius in his Historiola Mirae Stellae (1662). The blue star at left is Delta Ceti. I shot this Nov. 25, 2019, about a month after Mira’s predicted peak on Oct. 24, 2019. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mira for more information about Mira. This is a stack of 6 exposures, each 2 minutes with the Canon 200mm lens at f/2.8 and Canon 6D MkII at ISO 1600, tracked with the LighTrack II tracker. An additional exposure through the Kenko Softon A filter and layered in adds the star glows.
The northern Milky Way of autumn, from Perseus (at left) to northern Cygnus (at right), with Cassiopeia and Cepheus at centre, captured in the red light of hydrogen-alpha revealing the rich array of nebulas along this portion of the Milky Way. The main nebulas are: At left the Heart and Soul Nebulas (IC 1805 and IC 1848); at centre the NGC 7822/Ced214 complex; at right the IC 1396 complex. This is a stack of 24 x 6-minute exposures with the Canon 28-70mm RF lens wide open at f/2 and Canon Ra camera at ISO 1600, with the 12nm Astronomik H-a clip-in filter. Taken on a very clear night with this area of sku high overhead, but with a bright 8-day gibbous Moon in the south lighting the sky. Taken from home on December 12, 2021.
