The Snake Nebula, Barnard 72, is a dark nebula in Ophiuchus
When processing this picture, a realization set in; we are looking
through the disk of the Milky Way. Two existential questions
warred in my mind: one, just how many stars are there in our
Milky Way alone? And, two, what portion of the galaxy is made
of dust and gas compared to the stars? Now you may be asking,
"How are those questions existential?" and my response
would be, "Are you looking at the picture?"
Hover over the picture for an annotated version
Date: 18 and 20 June 2023
FOV: 110' × 73'; the angular size of B 72 is about 37' × 17'
Telescope: Stellarvue SVX102T + SFFX-1 (714mm, f/7)
Guiding: ZWO ASI120MM mini mono guide camera,
Stellarvue F050G 50mm guide scope
Computer: ASIair pro Raspberry Pi
Mount: ZWO AM5
Camera: ASI071MC Pro at -10°C and 240 gain
Pixel size: 4.78 μm
Resolution: 1.339 arcsec/pixel
Filter: Baader Light Pollution Moonglow filter with IR cut
Stacking: Ninty-four 240 second frames using Pixinsight
Total Time: 4 hours 16 minutes
Processing: Pixinsight – SPCC, DBE, SPCC, BlurXT, NoiseXT,
GHS, HST, MaskedStr, PM add, Saturation, DynCrop/Scale
Location: 18 June – Darling Hill Observatory near Vesper, NY,
20 June – Stony Creek Boat Launch near Henderson, NY
