Misbehaving Clouds: Milky Way Panorama

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Saw some very peculiar clouds on Wednesday night. There was lots of high, thin cloud hanging around during the evening with plenty more on its way on the satellite image. But as soon as it got dark they made a run over the horizon and stayed there, in defience of normal astronomical logic. I'm not much of a meteorologist, is there a variety of cloud that goes to bed when the Sun goes down?

Here's a panorama taken from the Caradon Observatory site. The strongest light sources are Callington, just right of centre, and Plymouth to the right of that. Saturn and Jupiter are visible just above Plymouth. The red lights on the right are from the Caradon Hill TV mast. It's darker in the other direction as Bodmin Moor is that way.

20 second exposures with the 6D and 14mm lens stitched together in Microsoft ICE.

Also shot a two pane mosaic of central Cygnus and had a go at Rho Ophiuchi, hopefully I'll get around to processing it before too long.

Edited May 17, 2020 by Knight of Clear Skies

[clarkpm4242]

You can get quite far south towards the centre of the Milky Way from there!

[Knight of Clear Skies]

1 hour ago, clarkpm4242 said:

You can get quite far south towards the centre of the Milky Way from there!

Yes, I hadn't realised quite how high it got in May although this was at about 3:00AM. I had been planning a trip to the south coast one day to shoot the core but perhaps that's not necessary. Will be interesting to see how the Rho Ophiuchi complex comes out.

[ollypenrice]

9 minutes ago, Knight of Clear Skies said:

Will be interesting to see how the Rho Ophiuchi complex comes out.

Have a go by all means but the stunning red-blue-gold colouring of the Rho region is extremely difficult even from my place at Lat 44. Further south still, Tom had a real fight with it from Andalucia. The problem is that it's all very faint and needs a good stretch, compounding the problems of LP and the atmosphere. It has to be worth a pop though.

Olly

[Knight of Clear Skies]

1 hour ago, ollypenrice said:

The problem is that it's all very faint and needs a good stretch, compounding the problems of LP and the atmosphere.

My expectations aren't high but I did shoot a bit of Ha on it too which should help bring out the structure, I'd be happy with a desaturated version. The RGB subs have a big gradient across them and colour balance is going to be a nightmare I think. Ran a 2 minute sub through GradEx and got this.

M4 looks promising despite its small size and I can see hints of yellow, blue and red nebulosity. Didn't frame it terribly well so I've cropped out the left hand side. For comparison, this is 2 minutes on Cygnus with a rough colour balance and no other processing.

This is with the old Takumar lens at f3.5, I used the Samyang lens to shoot Ha at f2.

Edited May 18, 2020 by Knight of Clear Skies

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Probably not the right place to share this but I've just found out that Antares was imaged by the VLTI.

"Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer astronomers have constructed this remarkable image of the red supergiant star Antares. This is the most detailed image ever of this object, or any other star apart from the Sun."

I might have a go at scaling the above and pasting it into my image when I've finished processing it (making sure I credit it properly to ESO/K. Ohnaka).

Edited May 18, 2020 by Knight of Clear Skies

[davew]

That is so good, would it be worth a trip down to somewhere like Seaton and dodge all that light ?

Very nice image.

Dave.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

1 hour ago, davew said:

That is so good, would it be worth a trip down to somewhere like Seaton and dodge all that light ?

Very nice image.

Dave.

Glad you like it. At some point in the future a trip would be worthwhile but I'm not sure quite where to go, I'd prefer to stay away from the villages so I don't disturb anyone. I don't really mind the LP in the panorama above as the Milky Way arches above it, but I suspect it's going to make Rho Ophiuchi very difficult to process.

Edited May 18, 2020 by Knight of Clear Skies

[maw lod qan]

I'm amazed by the arch of the Milkyway in your image.

What I normally get to see is a band going overhead from South to North.

The South end is always the thickest part.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

43 minutes ago, maw lod qan said:

I'm amazed by the arch of the Milkyway in your image.

What I normally get to see is a band going overhead from South to North.

The South end is always the thickest part.

Yes, the disk is a straight plane in reality. It's result of the projection in Microsoft ICE, it's not possible to display a (roughly) 180 degree panorama without distortion.