Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex (Jochen Maes)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Scorpius (Sco) · Contains: 19 Sco · 20 Sco) · 21 Sco) · 22 Sco · 5 Oph · Al Niyat (σ Sco · Alniyat I · Cor Scorpii · IC 4603 · IC 4604 · IC 4605 · Kalb al Akrab (α Sco · M 4 · NGC 6121 · The star Alniyat · The star Antares · The star i Sco · The star ο Sco · The star ρ Oph · Vespertilio · rho Oph Nebula

Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex

Link: https://www.jochenmaes.com/astronomy/nebulae?itemId=tmasvjdi00fegd6g5twh4medpjoiwj

Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex

Link: https://www.jochenmaes.com/astronomy/nebulae?itemId=tmasvjdi00fegd6g5twh4medpjoiwj

The Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex is a collection of instellar dust and nebulae in the Ophiuchus constellation, around 460 light years from earth.

Technically speaking, there isn't anything too majorly exciting/unique going on here. However, a few specific circumstances are leading to the colourful spectacle we're able to observe:

- The big yellow'ish area is essentially reflected/scattered starlight from the big bright star on the edge of it. The star in question is Antares, on average the 15th brightest star in the entire night sky and quite bright and easily noticeable even when looking up with the naked eye. The reason I say on average, is because the majority of the brightest stars in our sky are variable stars (meaning their brightness changes over time), so the "ranking" will differ depending on when you're looking exactly.

- The two blue/pink areas are there because of essentially the same reason. The only difference being that instead of one massive star, there's two less massive (but still quite substantial) blue stars who's light is being reflected/scattered here. The two stars in the middle of the leftmost area are called Rho Ophiuchi A and B and is where the complex as a whole gets its name from.

- The dark lanes all throughout the image are dense concentrations of dust, blocking (most) light from coming through.

- The globular cluster (circular grouping of stars) on the top right is the globular cluster M4. This is just a chance alignment (it happens to be in the same patch of sky) and is nowhere near the cloud complex (thousands of light years more distant in fact).

Image acquisition details:

25x600" Luminance
20x600" Red
20x600" Green
20x600" Blue

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The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	6301432
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
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