Turbulent heart of the Scorpio

This is the area around the heart of scorpio (Antares) the seventeenth brightest star in the nighttime sky and the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius, and is often referred to as "the heart of the scorpion". Along with Aldebaran, Regulus, and Fomalhaut, Antares comprises the group known as the 'Royal stars of Persia'. It is one of the four brightest stars near the ecliptic. Distinctly reddish when viewed with the unaided eye, Antares is a red supergiant at a distance of 550 Light Years, imagine the massive size compared to the distance and how bright it is in the night sky.

Antares is surrounded by the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex. The Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex is a dark nebula of gas and dust that is located 1° south of the star ρ Ophiuchi of the constellation Ophiuchus which is one of the closest star-forming regions to the Solar System. This region is around 460 Light Years away from us which contains a total of about 3,000 times the mass of the Sun in material.

This image is a stack of images shot with and with astronomik CLS filter. Total 15 x 122sec (Without filter) + 10 x 122sec (With Filter) was hoping to get same amount with filter but the lens dewed up so had to drop those images. The filter leaves a blue/green tint to the images and it does take a while to get them fixed, spent around 2 + hours to process the image, love the outcome. Just not happy with the 50mm lens as it has a Spherical Abbr more than i expected, had the crop the image to get rid of the abbr corners. For some reason my intervalometer was set to 122sec, have to make sire it is 120sec next time.

The images were shot using 50mm f1.8 on Canon 6D and tracked using iOptron ZEQ25. After a long time auckland skies were clear and cloud not miss the opportunity but had to pay for that at night as all motorways were closed and had to take a 55km detour, was just hoping the night was worth it and now i can say it was.

Total Exposure data = 51.23min = 3050 sec

Colour corrected in Lightroom 5 and Median stacked in Photoshop CC

Exif for each frame: 122 sec, f2.8 with Canon 50mm f1.8 on Canon 6D

(With Filter) : ISO 3200

(Without Filter) : ISO 800

Shot near Warkworth Satellite Station

Feel free to share the image and CC welcomed