It’s not the most common phenomenon to shoot, but Erich Krause’s “well executed and well processed” image of NGC 6559 — a star-forming region in Sagittarius — garnered the prize for Photo of the Week.
Calling it the “space fist with dragon in palm,” Krause shot the image July 26, 2019 in Dorothy, Alberta.
“I originally took the photo in the summer, and my goal was to obtain the Chinese dragon (black stringy element in the middle), but I noticed when I rotated the image it looked like a fist,” he wrote in an email.
While judge noted the image was “well executed and well processed,” and another pointed out “the stars are well done and good noise management. Technically well done. And not that common of a target.”
The camera he used was a ZWO ASI 1600MM, with an Esprit 80 lens and a focal length of 400 mm.
He took 15 Ha shots at 240 seconds, 10 SII at 240 seconds, and 10 OIII at 240 seconds.
Krause also noted he made a video of how he acquired the data and made the image, available on YouTube.
Our honourable mention of the week goes to Daniel Posey for his beautiful Orion wide field image. As one judge noted, “It’s well-executed, an interesting composition and shows what can be done with a good DSLR and competent processing.”
Posey said he got the shot February 20 from the grounds of the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory at the RASC Victoria Centre Observatory in Victoria, British Columbia.
“Despite contending with the light pollution from Victoria no filtration was used for this image,” he wrote.
He said this was 191 frames shot at 30 seconds each (for a total of one hour and 33.5 minutes). He used a Sigma Art 105mm f/1.4 lens at f/1.4, and a Canon Ra at ISO 400. All frames were captured off an unguided iOptron Skyguider Pro portable tracker, and they were calibrated with bias and flat frames, and stacked/processed in PixInsight.
“I had to crop down slightly due to overlap/framing issues after a meridian flip, so this is smaller than a full frame field,” he noted.
