Rho Ophiuchi is a triple star system (on the left side of the picture) in the constellation Ophiuchus. The light from the stars is partially absorbed by the gas, which makes the blue reflection nebula visible. A smaller reflection nebula called IC 4603 is located on the right. The picture shows just a small frame of the significantly bigger nebula, called the Rho Ophiuchi complex, which combines star Antares, globular cluster M4, and many more reflection, emission, and dark nebulae. In order to capture the whole complex, one has to use a significantly shorter focal length, like 130 – 200 mm.
The picture was taken under the dark skies of Fuerteventura and it’s a stack of 73 pictures, 3 minutes each, which makes the total integration time 219 minutes.
Technical details:
| Telescope | Newton 150/600 mm |
| Aperture | 150 mm |
| Focal length | 570 mm |
| Mount | Rainbow Astro RST 135 |
| Autoguiding | ZWO 174MM, Guidescope 30 mm |
| Camera | ZWO 071 Pro @-0°C |
| Corrector | TS MaxField |
| Filters | No |
| Exposure | 73x180s, Gain 94, bin 1x1, |
| Date | 2020-07-21 |
[…] I also packed 150mm Newtonian, together with my new mount Rainbow Astro RS135. This mount is simply excellent and very portable. I still have Avalon M-Zero, but it is significantly heavier, therefore if I travel with Avalon, I have to order a second suitcase and to travel with two suitcases is not that convenient. Rainbow Astro occupies only half of my luggage, so there was a space for some T-shirts. I must say, that the Avalon is a better mount for tracking and there is no need to do a meridian flip, but the portability is for me more important. The primary target was the Lobster nebula, but I managed to capture some DSOs around Antares and in the core of the Milky Way (Lagoon, Trifid, M4, M6, M7, M24, IC4304) […]