Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Scorpius (Sco)  ·  Contains:  12.98  ·  13.92  ·  14 nu. Sco  ·  14.64  ·  18 Oph  ·  19 omi Sco  ·  2 A Sco  ·  20 sig Sco  ·  24 Sco  ·  25 Sco  ·  3 Sco  ·  363 Padua  ·  4 Sco  ·  4 psi Oph  ·  45 lam Lib  ·  46 tet Lib  ·  47 Lib  ·  49 Lib  ·  5 rho Oph  ·  6 pi. Sco  ·  7 chi Oph  ·  7 del Sco  ·  8 bet01 Sco  ·  8 phi Oph  ·  9 ome Oph  ·  Antares  ·  B229  ·  B230  ·  B238  ·  B40  ·  And 987 more.
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Scorpion's Head - A 9 Panel Mosaic of Rho Ophiuci Region, Gabriel R. Santos (grsotnas)
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Scorpion's Head - A 9 Panel Mosaic of Rho Ophiuci Region

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Scorpion's Head - A 9 Panel Mosaic of Rho Ophiuci Region, Gabriel R. Santos (grsotnas)
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Scorpion's Head - A 9 Panel Mosaic of Rho Ophiuci Region

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Description

Over 2 hours of preparation and planning... 6h of shooting... And almost 30h of processing.... 30GB of files... resulting in a 1.2GB 140-megapixel image... This is my most ambitious image yet - a 9 Panel Mosaic of the Scorpion's Head, a stunningly beautiful region of our night sky.

Many iconic objects are potrayed in this mosaic. We have as the brightest nebulas: the Blue Horsehead Nebula (IC 4592); Rho Ophiuci Reflection Nebula, along with the bright yellow star Antares. To the left, near the star pi Scorpii, lies Sh2-1. Several dark nebulae are also present in the region. The entire field is surrounded by extremely faint dust. Just spectacular, in my opinion.

On the technical side, this image was no easy task - the mosaicing process was greatly handles by AstroPixelProcess - however, the task took almost 26 hours to calibrate, register and integrate the images, along with 96GB of temporary files. The final result is also a whopping 140 megapixel file, of over 1.2 GB. Processing in PS wasn't trivial either, and took another 4h at least. All things told, however, this was my July/2017 project, and, to me, it turned out to be a success - I learned a lot with it, and still got an awesome image after all =D!

Calibration, Registration/Mosaic and Stacking done in AstroPixelProcessor. Post-processed in Adobe Photoshop CC with plugins. File management and final touches in Adobe Lightroom CC.

*Please check the full image 3000px - 25% resized from original 15000px)*

Constructive criticism, comments and suggestions are more than welcome in the comments section. Thank's for taking your time to look at this image.

Taken from Rural Skies (Bortle 3-4; NELM ~6.2; SQM ~21.6*calculated), from Cristina, MG, Brazil (22ºS latitude).

Date and Time: July 20th and 21st, 2017

Camera: Canon EOS 80D (unmodded), at ISO 1600

Lens: Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8, operated at 200mm f/3.5

Mount: Sky-Watcher HEQ5, tracking, guided

Guiding: Starguider 50mm Guidescope + ASI120mm + PHD2; ~1.8" RMS

Exposure Detail: 9 Panel mosaic, each consisting of 5, 6, 7 or 8 light frames; Total 56x240s (216min)

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  • Final
    Scorpion's Head - A 9 Panel Mosaic of Rho Ophiuci Region, Gabriel R. Santos (grsotnas)
    Original
  • Scorpion's Head - A 9 Panel Mosaic of Rho Ophiuci Region, Gabriel R. Santos (grsotnas)
    B

B

Description: Improved background color balance

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Scorpion's Head - A 9 Panel Mosaic of Rho Ophiuci Region, Gabriel R. Santos (grsotnas)