Image 29 of 41
Dark Emu Rising in the Southern Milky Way
Dark Emu Rising (TT11mm RMod).jpg
This frames the Australian aboriginal "Dark Emu" made of dark dust lanes in the Milky Way as it rises in the east. The spectacular southern reaches of the Milky Way from Centaurus to Carina shine above high in the south, including the Southern Cross. The dark Coal Sack beside the Cross is the head of the Emu. Her neck is the dark lane that splits the Milky Way starting at the star Alpha Centauri and extending down and into Scorpius, here rising above the trees.
The faint Zodiacal Band is visible at left. The two Magellanic Clouds are setting at right.
This is a blend of four tracked exposures for the sky and one for the ground, all two minutes at ISO 1600 with the TTArtisan 11mm full-frame fish-eye lens on the filter modified Canon EOS R camera, on the old iOptron SkyTracker. The camera was equipped with an Astronomik clip-in UV/IR Cut filter which when used with this lens actually reduces its off-axis aberrations.
Taken late at night on March 10/11, 2024 at the Warrumbungles Mountain Motel near Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia, during the OzSky star party. The red light is from my other camera rig taking panorama images of the Milky Way.
For this image I reduced the stars to emphasize the Milky Way and dark lanes, using RC-Astro StarXterminator, and an Apply Image function to create a "stars only" layer to blend back in selectiively using a luminosity mask, to reduce the profusion of faint stars but retain the brightest stars.
The faint Zodiacal Band is visible at left. The two Magellanic Clouds are setting at right.
This is a blend of four tracked exposures for the sky and one for the ground, all two minutes at ISO 1600 with the TTArtisan 11mm full-frame fish-eye lens on the filter modified Canon EOS R camera, on the old iOptron SkyTracker. The camera was equipped with an Astronomik clip-in UV/IR Cut filter which when used with this lens actually reduces its off-axis aberrations.
Taken late at night on March 10/11, 2024 at the Warrumbungles Mountain Motel near Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia, during the OzSky star party. The red light is from my other camera rig taking panorama images of the Milky Way.
For this image I reduced the stars to emphasize the Milky Way and dark lanes, using RC-Astro StarXterminator, and an Apply Image function to create a "stars only" layer to blend back in selectiively using a luminosity mask, to reduce the profusion of faint stars but retain the brightest stars.