Starship Asterisk*

Scorpius Enhanced

Explanation: If Scorpius looked this good to the unaided eye, humans might remember it better. Scorpius more typically appears as a few bright stars in a well-known but rarely pointed out zodiacal constellation. To get a spectacular image like this, though, one needs a good camera, a dark sky, and some sophisticated image processing. The resulting digitally-enhanced image shows many breathtaking features. Diagonal across the image right is part of the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. Visible there are vast clouds of bright stars and long filaments of dark and intricate dust. Rising vertically on the image left are dark dust bands known as the Dark River. Several of the bright stars on the left are part of Scorpius' head and claws, and include the bright star Antares. Numerous red emission nebulas, blue reflection nebulas, and dark filaments became visible as the deep 17-hour expo image developed. Scorpius appears prominently in southern skies after sunset during the middle of the year.

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LOL, be sure to click on the “sophisticated image processing” link!



Eric

Oh wow, I can hardly believe that cosmic color candy!!!

Let's take a look at some of the individual objects in the image:


1) Part of the large emission nebula surrounding runaway star Zeta Ophiuchi. Compare with Dieter Willasch's photo Zeta Ophiuchi and neighbours. Google Willasch's photo if it disappears!

2) The Blue Horse!

3) Beta Scorpii (Beta Sco).

4) Delta Sco.

5) Pi Sco.

6) Blue reflection nebula surrounding star Rho Ophiuchi.

7) Red emission nebula and blue reflection nebula surrounding star Sigma Scorpii.

8) Globular cluster M4.

9) Yellow reflection nebula surrounding red supergiant star Antares.

10) Red emission nebula surrounding star Tau Sco.

11) Epsilon Sco.

12) Delightful "double star" Mu1 and Mu2 Sco. The picture is by Roberto Mura from Italian Wikipedia.

13) Red emission nebula IC 4628, also known as the Prawn Nebula.

14) Bright open cluster NGC 6231. Together the Prawn Nebula and NGC 6231 form the False Comet. If the picture disappears, google "Caelum Observatory. Best of AOP: IC 4628, NGC 6321, and regions North of Zeta Scorpii by Adam Block/NOAO/AURA/NSF". Zeta Scorpii is the "double star" at bottom right in the Caelum Observatory image. Note: You may also google a picture of the False Comet by Jose Carlos Diniz.

15) Eta Sco.

16) Theta Sco.

17) Iota Sco.

18) Lambda Sco, Shaula, the second brightest-looking star in Scorpius after Antares.

19) Kappa Sco. It forms a nice blue "pair" (all right, a very wide pair) with Lambda Sco. I was going to show you a picture, but Google only offers me a picture where Lambda and Kappa look orange!

20) NGC 6357, the Lobster Nebula.

21) NGC 6334, the Cat's Paw Nebula.

22) Cluster NGC 6193, ionizing emission nebula NGC 6188. I love the superb picture by Astrodrudis, Joseph M. Drudis, of the brilliant O3 star HD 150136, one of the hottest stars in the galaxy, and the "ridge" of dust its ferocious stellar wind and onslaught of ultraviolet light is pushing away from it. Okay, I can't resist, I'm going to post it as an attachment! And I'll add a picture of the False Comet, too, since the one I tried to hotlink has disappeared.


Ann

Actually, if Scorpius looked like that to the unaided eye, we would hardly see any constellation at all, for all the flesh-colored masses of gas and other stuff...

Enhanced; but still hard to track the constellation!

This little guy is so cute!

WOW! Thanks for all the time and information, Ann. I too would not have found all the sites along the journey without your guidance.

For a mere human, like me, I have to hold the camera steady for 17 hrs straight to get an image like this? can a film camera do this?
pass the ice cold one

ta152h0 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 16, 2021 6:05 pm For a mere human, like me, I have to hold the camera steady for 17 hrs straight to get an image like this? can a film camera do this?
pass the ice cold one

Images like this would be much easier to obtain if we merely had to hold the camera steady for long periods!

(And image like this is theoretically possible using film, but would be much more difficult given film's low sensitivity, generally low resolution, and various non-linearities.)

The "bright stars" link to http://astro-cabinet.com/showimage.php? ... ng=English doesn't work for me. Well, I get no error, but I get no image either, just a black frame. Anyone else?

PS - and thanks, Ann for the exhaustive annotation. You've outdone yourself!

I'll only add that the much small cluster even nearer to Antares is NGC6164 (at least according to http://kenthurstobservatory.com/antares-region.html). Here's a zoomed-in portion from today's APOD:

johnnydeep wrote: ↑Wed Jun 16, 2021 8:21 pm I'll only add that the much small cluster even nearer to Antares is NGC6164 (at least according to http://kenthurstobservatory.com/antares-region.html).

There's an error (typo?) at the linked page. It's actually NGC 6144 (referencing SkyTools, SkySafari and Stellarium). I happen to know this offhand because I was looking at this globular cluster last night and it's still fresh in my memory.

johnnydeep wrote: ↑Wed Jun 16, 2021 8:21 pm I'll only add that the much small cluster even nearer to Antares is NGC6164 (at least according to http://kenthurstobservatory.com/antares-region.html).

There's an error (typo?) at the linked page. It's actually NGC 6144 (referencing SkyTools, SkySafari and Stellarium). I happen to know this offhand because I was looking at this globular cluster last night and it's still fresh in my memory.

I struggle to connect with a lower exposition image in Wiki. The two cover different regions as Scorpio

Wasn't the 16th the 26th anniversary of APOD?

Joe Stieber wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 1:08 am

johnnydeep wrote: ↑Wed Jun 16, 2021 8:21 pm I'll only add that the much small cluster even nearer to Antares is NGC6164 (at least according to http://kenthurstobservatory.com/antares-region.html).

There's an error (typo?) at the linked page. It's actually NGC 6144 (referencing SkyTools, SkySafari and Stellarium). I happen to know this offhand because I was looking at this globular cluster last night and it's still fresh in my memory.

Thanks for the correction!