Rho Ophiuci is a classic. I have always wanted to collect a great image of the region, but due to my geographical limitations it has always been a struggle. Only being able to eek out 3-4hrs per evening at a low 30 degree elevation angle has not been cutting it. Now that I'm no longer limited by my geography, I figured it would be worth looking at once again.
Rho is one of the closest star-forming regions to earth at only 460 light years distance. It's close proximity means it is nice and large in the sky, which makes it suitable for any widefield instrument, including the 85mm refractor and 135mm lens used for this capture. The RGB originates from a two panel mosaic captured over the course of two nights, and the HOO comes from the piggyback 135mm lens system with data acquired on the first night.
The HOO was composed into the image after a continuum removal, to isolate the structures from the intense diffuse starlight of the region, this yielded these views:
Hydrogen alpha:
Oxygen iii:
The Ha was quite strong. I was suprised to note a faint amount of Oiii light, seemingly associated to he Ha structure behind the blue reflection nebula on the left. No idea of its name.
Hope you all enjoy the image!
and small plug, if you are looking for some editing guides, for both basic and mosaic images, I have two available here:
https://astrofalls.com/ both include raw data for following along!
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