Antares Region in Scorpio and the Prancing Pony 

 

Copyright 2007 Hap Griffin

 At the right side of the photograph can be seen the region detailed in the Antares and Rho Ophiucus photograph.  Dark lanes of dust can be seen streaming to the east (to the left) towards the Milky Way.  The center of our galaxy is the bright reddish patch at the lower left corner.  The complex strands of dark matter blocking our view of the stars beyond in the Milky Way resemble a prancing pony (turn your head to the left) and this region is often called by that name.  The bright visitor to this region is the planet Jupiter, seen in the very center of the photograph.  

 

Date/Location:    May 24, 2007     Griffin/Hunter Observatory    Bethune, SC
Instrument:    Canon 350XT Digital SLR (modified) through Nikon 50mm F/1.4 lens 
Focal Ratio:   F/2.0
Guiding:    None - piggybacked on Meade RCX-400 telescope
Conditions:    Visually clear
Weather:    60 F
Exposure: 54 minutes total (18 x 3 minutes)
Filters:    Baader UV/IR Block
Processing:    Focused and captured with DSLRFocus.  RAW to TIFF conversion, auto-dark and flat frame calibration, Digital Development, Richardson-Lucy deconvolution, resizing and JPEG conversion in ImagesPlus.  Color correction in Photoshop CS2.

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