Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex (mhtandy)

Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex

My first attempt at this very interesting area of the sky - a gas and dust-filled star forming region in Ophiuchus. Overall I'm happy with it, but for some reason using my calibration files made it look worse. This was taken at the coast, with my scope pointed over the ocean, so there was very little light pollution. I had to stop sooner than I wanted to due to a rapidly approaching wall of clouds - which turned out to be a quickly forming tropical depression!

Looking forward to adding more data to this one.

C

Description: new darks, flats, and dark flats applied to this version.

Uploaded: ...

D

Description: Added more light frames from a 2nd night of imaging. Average temperature during this set was about 80 deg. F.

Uploaded: ...

F

Description: I was using a cheap monitor for that last revision and didn't realize how bad it looked until I got back to the monitor I usually use. I was also dealing with horizontal banding issues, probably from the nighttime heat. Completely re-stacked and reprocessed using a new set of darks that I took at the upper end of the temperature range used for acquiring the light frames.

Uploaded: ...

G

Description: What a challenge this has been - there are so many ways to process it. This is an overlay of 2 versions in order to balance out the color gradient from right to left. My next plan with Rho is to get a more wide-angle shot that will capture the trailing dust lanes.

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H

Description: Reprocessed from scratch using just the first night's dataset. I wanted to believe the 2nd night was helpful in boosting S/N, but it was just too hot for the sensor. The 2nd set by itself had a lot of noise and the dreaded Canon horizontal "banding". I'm learning the limitations of this camera's sensor to heat. I think this version is a bit less noisy overall.

Uploaded: ...

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4898905
PixInsight job	PKYJ2AZVV5BQO078O3RKZVZ47UGNWZXU
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	16h26m19s.28
RA (top/left)	16h21m14s.73
RA (top/right)	16h20m09s.19
RA (bottom/right)	16h31m33s.82
RA (bottom/left)	16h32m17s.32

Dec (center)	-25°06′42″.1
Dec (top/left)	-23°06′42″.7
Dec (top/right)	-26°57′58″.7
Dec (bottom/right)	-27°06′22″.0
Dec (bottom/left)	-23°14′48″.5

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