Hagen Hohndorf’s view of the Milky Way and a Perseid meteor streaking through it over Skaha Lake, British Columbia, won our Photo of the Week on January 8, 2021.
“Facing south across Skaha Lake from light-polluted beach along north shore,” Hohndorf said he took one single 30-second exposure on August 10, 2020, processing it in DeepSkyStacker and Photoshop. He also noted that Saturn and Jupiter are visible in lower third of photograph.
He said he used a Canon 7D with a Canon EFS 10-18mm lens at 10mm (f/4.5).
Our honorable mention this week goes to Thomas Owen for his image of the Rosette Nebula, also known as Caldwell 49, which he shot on December 31, 2020, from Poplar Bay in Pigeon Lake, Alberta.
Owen collected 2.5 hours of exposure — “after that it disappeared behind the cabin,” he wrote — with a QSI 683 WSG and a Takahashi FS-102 (f/6) with focal reduction for the image.
“I imaged this at Pigeon Lake as 2020 ended and 2021 began, with a bright Moon overhead and fireworks below,” he said.
Located in the constellation Monoceros, the emission nebula is about 5,000 light-years away from Earth and, as Owen said, “is well worth some extra reading.”
Owen said this was his first all-narrowband image of this particular object, combining six-minute subs in Hydrogen-alpha, Oxygen III and Sulphur II. Sub-exposures were combined in Deep Sky Stacker and processed in the Canada-France-Hawaii palette, where Hα is mapped to red, OIII to green and SII to blue, using StarTools.
Keep your eyes on the skies — and on the prize! Prizes for the 2020-21 SkyNews Photo of the Week contest are sponsored by Sky-Watcher, Celestron, iOptron and The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Click here for more details on the prize packages that will be awarded to the best photos this year.
