reflection nebula

First Star Party of 2022

 in Blog  tagged dark nebula / first star party / old school / reflection nebula / Rho Ophiuchi

Amateur astronomers in the Portland area have had to contend with bad weather for the first half of the year, but it shifted dramatically last weekend, and we were finally able to make a trip to a dark sky location.  For me it was even more special because I hadn’t done any imaging at all this year prior to this.  The object above is the Rho Ophiuchi Nebula, captured from Goldendale, WA.  I’ve shot this before, but this version is definitely better, even though I haven’t yet put a lot of effort into processing it.  I think that a bit […]

Another Wild Flower from OSP

 in Blog  tagged Cepheus / Iris Nebula / moon / NGC7023 / OSP / reflection nebula / wind

It seems that every year when I go to OSP (Oregon Star Party) I end up shooting this beauty, the Iris Nebula, and each year it gets a little better.  I had not planned to shoot it again this year, but when I saw how good the seeing was on the second night, I just had to drop what I was doing and move on to the Iris. The Iris (NGC7023) is a reflection nebula in the constellation Cepheus, which has many great targets for astrophotography.  As with the Pleiades cluster, the blue appearance is really just the color of […]

M78 From the Other Side

 in Blog  tagged Barnard's Loop / dark nebula / M78 / Messier 78 / orion / reflection nebula

As mentioned earlier, I have been waiting (not so patiently) for better weather in Australia to finish collecting image data from M78, a bright reflection nebula in Orion.  It has finally happened, although there were issues with the quality of some frames.  I haven’t yet been able to figure out what caused the problem, but did find a reasonable work-around for it. This was captured from the other side of Earth, but also makes me curious about what M78 would look like from its other side.  In the upper right it appears that there is more bright blue light behind […]

Witch Headache

 in Blog  tagged reflection nebula / Witch Head Nebula

The Witch Head Nebula above is a target I’ve wanted to capture for a long time now.  It is a very large, and very diffuse reflection nebula, and therefore very dim, and must be captured with broadband (RGB) filters – from a dark sky site.  In the Winter.  Back home in the Pacific Northwest I never venture out to dark sky sites in the Winter because it’s too risky.  That is, even if you don’t get caught in a storm or stuck in a snow drift, there’s a good possibility that the weather will change and the whole trip will […]