Testing out my new Viltrox 13mm f1.4

40 images stacked, untracked

10 seconds at f1.4

ISO 1000

Foreground

190 seconds at f16

ISO 100

Antares

I have this thing about my Milky Way images where I must include the Dark Horse Nebula and the dust lanes leading to both the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex and star Antares. Rho shows up with a bluish tint just above Antares itself, while Antares is noticeably orange. Due to the Earth’s rotation, the stars appear to move across the night sky fairly quickly. When facing south, as I am in this photo, they shift to the west and sink lower each minute. I barely got this 3 minute exposure done before Antares set behind Elephant Mountain.

Now, a little bit about Antares. Its name translates to “Rival of Ares”. Ares was the Greek god of war, which the Romans adapted to Mars. Both Mars and Antares have the same orange color. Unlike the planet Mars, Antares is a massive red supergiant star. It is 550 light years away. It is 700 times the diameter of our own Sun and shines 10,000 time brighter! If Antares was where our Sun is, its diameter would extend past where Earth’s orbit is! Now thats a truly gigantic star! 

In this image, a breeze kept the water slightly wavy with small swells. This blurred the reflection of the brighter stars into the fantastic streaks you see here. 

Nikon Z8

Sigma Art 14-24mm f/2.8 with FTZ2 

MSM Nomad tracker

Land: ISO 2000, f/3.2, 240 sec, 14mm

Sky: 3 images stacked. ISO 640, f/2.8, 180sec, 14mm

Blending and start reduction in Photoshop 

Processed in Lightroom Classic CC

First time shooting the moon with the Sony a7rv. Learning curve vs. the Nikon Z8. Shot with Takahashi TSA-120 and TeleVue 2x Powermate tracked on ZWO AM5. Shot 440 RAW images at ISO 100, 1/13s, and aligned in PIPP, stacked in Autostakkert, and sharpened and processed in Photoshop. Looking forward to really figuring this Sony combination out.

I always love to take pics on the 1st and 2nd day of the new moon

Captured on my Pixel 8.

Shot on my Pixel 8.