Rho Ophiuchi Nebulae
In this image of the Rho Ophiuchi Nebulae, along with the Emission, Reflection, and Dark nebulae, there are three Globular clusters visible. Barnard 44, the dark nebulae, dominate the left side of the image as they stream away towards the center of the galaxy obscuring the stars behind it. This image was taken during 25 nights, over the space of 2 years from May 2011 to June 2012, from the Almanzora valley in Almeria, Spain. This photograph was chosen as an APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day) by the NASA run website for the 28th of August 2012.
Over the course of the twenty five nights, three hours of Luminance data, and three hours each of Red, Green and Blue filtered images, were obtained for each frame. Due to the brightness of Antares, the upper frames of this mosaic showed bright flares from the star. This meant that I needed to collect data for a 5th central frame to use in the processing. This gave a total of 5 frames for the mosaic, with 60 hours of data for the entire image.
This picture took 2nd Place in the "Deep Sky Category" at the "Astrophotographer of the Year" in 2013, run by the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London.
Note: All our prints are printed on Baryta 325g Paper, which is an excellent paper for framing. The paper is a gloss type, which gives very vivid colour views.