Rho Ophiuchi
June 7,2019
@ 2019 Anthony Quintile
My goal with this photo was to capture Jupiter while it was near the Rho Ophiuchi Nebula and neighbors. I was excited to also capture Callisto at 2:00 next to Jupiter, I think M4 is pretty good, considering the focal length, and, given the short exposure, I was glad to get some of the Blue Horsehead. I was also glad that M80 turned out to be a star cluster and not something I screwed up in processing.
This was my first real effort with a guided SLR lens shot, (as opposed to a telescope). I was hopeful that the “vintage” Pentax lens I bought for $30 would deliver, and I really feel it did! This image is uncropped, and although it has some distortion in the corners, I think it is pretty acceptable.
This image was shot at Doney Mountain Picnic Area near Wupatki National Monument. The bottom right corner was showing light pollution from Flagstaff. It took a lot of work in processing to get that part of the sky relatively neutral, but I learned a few new tricks. It’s still not perfect. I did learn that widefield AP is far more susceptible to light pollution gradients, which is obvious I guess, but I hadn’t dealt with this yet.
SMC Pentax-A 50mm F/1.4 at F/4 and Pentax K3 II
Losmandy G11 Gemini 2
Guided with ASIAir, (PHD2?), ASI120MM Mini, ZWO 280mm guide scope.
3 hours 14 minutes, mostly 4 minute exposures, about a dozen 2 minutes, ISO 400.
Shot on the night of Friday, June 7th at Doney Mountain Picnic Area, near Wupatki National Monument, north of Flagstaff, AZ.
Processed with Deep Sky Stacker, Photoshop, GradientXterminator.
60 darks, a bunch of bias, no flats. (The flats seemed to be causing some sort of reversed vignetting? Either way, the image was improved I think without the flats.)