Antares - Rho Ophiuchi area

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About this Image

The area spans from the yellow supergiant Antares, some 700 times larger in diameter than the Sun, to Rho-Ophiuchi. Mag 1 star Antares (Alpha Scorpii) on the top left of the image, embedded in a yellow reflection nebula gives nice contrast to the 2 globular clusters NGC 6144 (middle) and M 4 (bottom) and to the light blue nebula (IC 4604) around the mag 8 star right of the center.
To the right side embedded in a remarkable blue reflection nebula is the Rho-Ophiuchi area. The star just out of the image in the bottom is Sigma Scorpii. The distance to Antares is approx. 520 light years.
A wider view can be found here
North is right.


Technical Details
Optics

105mm TMB refractor with flattener at f/6.5

Mount AP-400 GEM
Camera SBIG STL-11000M at -20C, internal filter wheel
Filters Astronomik LRGB
Date Aug 07-08, 2004.
Location Hakos/Namibia
Sky Conditions mag 6, good transparency, temperature 13 C,
Exposure Mosaic of 2 images, each LRGB= 15:15:15:15 min (5-minute sub-exposures)
all 1x1.
Processing Image aquisition in Maxim DL 4.0; Image calibration, aligning, mean stacking, DDP and color synthesis in ImagesPlus;
Photoshop: mosaic combining, curves, color balance, cropped;