A 3-panel mosaic of the Southern Cross, Crux, shot April 5, 2016 from Tibuc Cottage, Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia. Acrux, Alpha Cruxis, is the star at bottom and Becrux, Beta Cruxis, is the star at left, with the Jewel Box Cluster, NGC 4755, just to the left of Becrux. Gacrux is at top and Delta Cruxis is at right. The star cluster NGC 4349 is above Alpha Cruxis. The bright red nebula in the dark Coal Sack is Gum 46. The rich cluster to the right of Becrux is Harvard 7. The dark nebulosity at lower left is the Coal Sack. The small cluster embedded in the Coal Sack to the left of Acrux is NGC 4609, what I call the Coal Dust Cluster. Slight haze or high cloud added the natural star glows here. This is a moasic of 3 panels, each a stack of 4 x 4-minute exposures with the Borg 77mm f/4 astrograph and filter-modified Canon 5D MkII at ISO 1600. Stacked and stitched in Photoshop.
The Milky Way through Carina and Crux, with the Carina Nebula at right and the Southern Cross at left, and the Coal Sack beside the Cross. The Dark Doodad dark nebula streak in Musca is at bottom. The field is filled with dark nebula patches and streaks. This is a stack of 4 x 5 minute exposures at f/2.8 with the 35mm lens and Canon 60Da at ISO 800, taken from Coonabarabran, Australia, March 2014. An additional exposure through a dewed up soft focus filter and layered in Photoshop adds the star glows.
A framing of the major areas of bright and dark nebulosity in Cygnus and Cepheus, showing pink emission nebulas contrasting with dark dusty regions in the Cygnus and into the Perseus arms of the Milky Way. Cepheus is at upper left; northern Cygnus is at right, with the bright Cygnus starcloud right of centre. The reddening (or yellowing) effects of interstellar dust in the spiral arms of the Milky Way is apparent. The bright blue star Deneb is left of centre. Just below it and at centre is the North America Nebula, NGC 7000, and its adjacent companion Pelican Nebula, IC 5070. The Gamma Cygni nebulosity complex, IC 1318, is right of centre. The dark Funnel Cloud Nebula in northern Cygnus is at centre. The Veil Nebula supernova remnant, NGC 6960 and 6992-5, is at lower right. The small Cocoon Nebula, IC 5146, is below and left of centre. The Elephant Trunk Nebula, IC 1396, with the adjacent orange "Garnet Star" (aka Mu Cephei) in Cepheus is at upper left. The area is dotted with other smaller emission nebulas in southern Cepheus. This is a blend of: 14 x 4-minute exposures with the Canon RF28-70mm lens at 43mm and f/2.8 and with the camera at ISO 1600 -- blended with 14 x 4-minute exposures at ISO 3200 with the lens at f/2, with the set taken just prior with the Moon still up, but with an Astronomik 12nm H-Alpha clip-in filter in place, to pick up just the red H-Alpha nebulosity. The camera was the red-sensitive Canon EOS Ra. For the normal "non-H-Alpha" images, the lens was equipped with the 95mm URTH Night light pollution rejecton filter to help enhance the nebulosity even in the broadband images. The H-Alpha set brought out the faintest areas of nebulosity. I shot this from home August 5, 2022 on a very fine dark transparent night with the field straight overhead. The camera was on the Star Adventurer Mini tracker. All stacking, alignment, blending and processing done in Photoshop. The H-Alpha set was processed to be monochrome but was blended into the colour stack using a Lighten mode and colorized pinky red with a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Curves and color grading applied to both sets in part using luminosity masks generated with TK8 Actions and Lumenzia. A mild Orton glow effect added with Luminar AI.
