Milky Way Core (Bruce Rohrlach)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Sagittarius (Sgr) · Contains: IC 4604 · IC 4605 · Lagoon Nebula · M 8 · NGC 6523 · NGC 6526 · NGC 6727 · Part of the constellation Corona Austrina (CrA) · Part of the constellation Ophiuchus (Oph) · Part of the constellation Sagittarius (Sgr) · Part of the constellation Scorpius (Sco) · Part of the constellation Serpens (Ser) · Sargas (θSco) · The star Antares (αSco) · The star Ascella (ζSgr) · The star Girtab · The star Kaus Australis (εSgr) · The star Lesath (υSco) · The star Media (δSgr) · The star Nunki (σSgr) · The star Sabik (ηOph) · The star Shaula (λSco) · The star κSco · rho Oph Nebula

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Milky Way Core

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Milky Way Core

Wide-field image of the Milky Way core imaged from Lysterfield, Melbourne (Nikkor 50mm, Nikon D610). Image created from a stack of 38 sub-frames - each 8 sec exposure (f2.2). The integrated exposure of the stack is 38 x 8 secs = 5 mins.

Conditions were not ideal in terms of light pollution - the 3/4 moon was just up, the neighbours had wood fires burning with smoke haze reflecting moonlight, and street-lights added to the reflective background glow. The light pollution meant longest exposures I could take was around 8 seconds, so individual images were fairly washed out. The 50mm focal length also puts a ceiling on the length of untracked exposures, allowing only 10 seconds exposures before stars start to trail in each sub-frame across the stationary camera.

Nevertheless, the stack of 38 sub-frames still yields good detail in the core of the Milky Way. This region is Sagittarius and Scorpius, the Lagoon Nebula pops out as the reddish area in the lower centre, and the dark dust lanes in the shape of a pipe (the Pipe Nebula) also stands out just left of centre. The bright orange star near top edge on left is Antares - a supergiant slow-variable star (16th brightest in night sky) that forms the heart of Scorpio.

This cheap "wide-field" 50mm lens holds promise if I can get to a dark site and have the camera mount compensate for earth’s rotation, allowing longer exposures. Next attempt will aim for 30 minutes instead of 5 minutes of image data. A stitched panel of 3 would give would give a nice wall-mount if gloss-printed I think. A project for this winter while the centre of our galaxy is still visible in the southern hemisphere

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	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
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	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
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	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
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Unknown

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	3627946
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
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