About the Image:
This amazing 115 Megapixel 6 panel mosaic image of the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex was taken in a single extraordinary night using two premium refractors in parallel at the Rooisand Desert Ranch in Namibia.
Revision B was resized to 50% of the original version, to allow viewing the image on mobile phones - the original resolution was just too high...

At a distance of about 460 lightyears, Rho Ophiuchi is one of the closest star forming regions in the milky way.
It features different emission and reflection nebula, lots of dust, bright stars (such as Antares) and several globular clusters (like Messier 4).
It is also for sure one of the most colourful regions of our home galaxy, and a perfect widefield target, that is often imaged using camera lenses.
After reviewing lots of images about this region, and some attempts by me to image the region from southern Europe, I always thought that most images were lacking some crispness and contrast.
Creating a high-resolution image of this amazing area from the southern hemisphere under dark skies therefore was always my dream.

Used Equipment:
The Skywatcher Esprit 100 APO was rented from DeepSky Safaris (DeepSkySafaris.com) and was equipped with my private 0.75 Riccardi Reducer (resulting in 410mm at F4.1), L-Pro 2" Filter (by accident!) and ZWO ASI2600MC - it was used for some deep 5 minute exposures (18x300s each panel).
The TMB 650 was loaned to me from my good friend Andy Bender (AstroPic.de) and was equipped with an 0.65 Starizona ApexL reducer (resulting in 422mm at F4) and ZWO ASI2600MC - it was used for 2 minute color exposures (35x120s each panel).

Processing:
After some back and forth I decided to combine the RGB and L-Pro RGB images into one single stack using Pixinsight WBPP script.
The creation and processing of the mosaic was done completely in Pixinsight, using the "X-Tools", HDR Multiscan, LHE and other advanced processing techniques to bring out the maximum detail.

Trivia:
This was my first trip to Namibia, and it will definitely be not my last - special thanks to the Rooisand Desert Ranch Team, and Faried from DeepSkySafaris for all the support during the stay!

By (lucky) accident I used my standard Optolong L-Pro filter also in the pristine dark skies of the Namibia Gamsberg area, which (I think) gives this image an extra punch of contrast.
This image was taken at the last night ouf our stay and the imaging session started right after sunset and went on until sunrise - thanks to serveral liters of coffee I could oversee the whole session, in order to prevent errors and issues.

Special thanks to:
- Andy Bender and the colleagues from Sternwarte Meckesheim for the company and keeping alive the coffee supply throughout the whole night!
- Faried Abu-Salih (DeepSkySafaris.com) for the extraordinary support!
- Resa Ghanawistschi for the troubleshooting during the first nights!

At the end it took me days and weeks to sort, review and process all the images from Namibia and figure out the right processing approach, but at the end I think it was worth the effort
Please follow me - there's more to come...

Please take some time and do a little "star-walk" in the full-resolution image!

Comments welcome

Best Regards and Clear Skies!

Nico

https://www.sternwarte-meckesheim.de / http://www.astronico.de