Category: Astrophotography

I’ve always liked Barnard’s Loop, this glowing red, but invisible to the naked eye, ring around a large part of the constellation of Orion. In the picture, the three bright stars in the upper right are the belt of Orion – Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka. The bright star at the bottom is one of his knees – Salph. Toward the right are the Orion Nebula, visible to the naked eye and next to Alnitak, the Flame and Horsehead Nebulae. Finally, that big red arc on the left and bottom is a part of Barnard’s Loop. This was just an hour’s worth of 60 second subs with my Samyang 135mm lens and ASI2600MC Pro camera from a Bortle 2 site.

The Dolphin Head Nebula, aka SH2-308, is a cosmic bubble in the constellation of Canis Major, a little south of Sirius, the brightest star in the sky (not counting the Sun). The nebula is being “inflated” by the intense stellar wind from a “Wolf-Rayet” star in it’s center.

This was shot from a Bortle 2 area (pretty dark) with my Samyang 135 lens and ASI2600MC Pro and an Antlia Triband filter. Three years ago, I shot the nebula with my C11 and Hyperstar.

The Pleiades star cluster is overhead at sunset now, which means they will exit the evening sky before you know it. Time to shoot them or wait a few months and get up early.

This was made from two nights imaging and about 64 three-minute subs, using my C11 with Hyperstar and an Antlia Triband RGB Ultra filter at the River Ridge Observatory.