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.

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