Category: Astrophotography

I’m not a big fan of open star clusters. These loose aggregations of dozens of stars tend to be a little boring. This one, however, has some history behind it. Originally, it represented the tail of Leo (the lion) but one of the Ptolemys renamed it after Queen Berenice, so it’s other name is “Berenice’s Hair”. The field of view here is 10 degrees by 6.6 degrees so this cluster is quite large and at a measured distance of 280 light-years, it is nearby as well. Note what I initially thought were three blemishes but turned out to be galaxies in the lower left and upper left.

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.