Backlog

I have had an amazing trip with 100% clear skies. Hence I was spending my time outdoors rather than blogging. However, now I must go to work and process my pics. I have a selection I've done so far of 'exotic' southern milky way objects. Mm-mm-mm! No that's not millimetres, but if you want to know the mm focal length of the instrument used in this pic - it is only 300! Using a starlight express SBIG ST-8 on this little scope gave us this wonderful wide field of Barnard 72, the snake nebula. I have blogged this object before, but never in this much depth or area. This is a single shot of 5 min. I think the scope is around f/6. At the bottom left just off the edge is the star 44 Ophiuchi, which can be used to find these objects. There is a dark kidney bean or cashew nut shaped nebula that is sitting on a star (B74) , going up and right, you come to B70, B69 and then the super dark B68. Over to the left of this field of view is a wonderful big straight dust lane sticking out of the milky way that I could see with my bare eyes!