gallery

Death Valley Nights (above)

by JERRY SCHAD

Sinking into the hills beyond Death Valley, California,

are the constellations Orion (left) and Taurus. The view
is to the west, overlooking the desert flats of the valley.
The image was acquired from Zabriskie Point with
Manly Beacon, a rocky promontory, easily visible in the
right foreground, thanks to the presence of bright
moonlight.

Antares and Rho Ophiuchi (left)

by TONY & DAPHNE HALLAS

The glorious colors result from a mixture of objects and

processes. Rho Ophiuchi (upper center) lies at the heart
of a reflection nebula illuminated by the stars blue
light. Clouds of gas whose atoms are excited to shine
by ultraviolet starlight produce the reddish emission
nebulae scattered across the region, especially at right.
Dark lanes are the silhouettes of dust clouds that block
distant starlight. The supergiant star Antares at bottom
is the source of yellowish light that tints the reflection
nebula surrounding it. The globular star cluster M4 is
visible to the right of Antares and below the red cloud
engulfing Sigma Scorpii.

136

September 2000 Sky & Telescope

2000 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

Gallery-New Title style, 10/11.5, 10c10m40y

by BOB DOLE

XByline style is: Gal-Byline,MyrSky FairlyBExt 565/700,

9.5/11.5, 10c10m30y.By is in lowercase and the name
is in all caps. XXXDescription is in MyrSky-SemiBold
550/550, 9.5/11, white. Style sheet is Gallery text.
Everything is rag-right. First line has no indent (set it
manually).XXX
X8
X9

Gallery-New Title style, 10/11.5, 10c10m40y

b y B U F F Y T H E VA M P I R E S L AY E R

XByline style is: Gal-Byline,MyrSky FairlyBExt 565/700,

9.5/11.5, 10c10m30y.By is in lowercase and the name
is in all caps. XXXDescription is in MyrSky-SemiBold
550/550, 9.5/11, white. Style sheet is Gallery text.
Everything is rag-right. First line has no indent (set it
manually).XXX
X18
X19

Gallery-New Title style, 10/11.5, 10c10m40y

b y V I C K I VA L E

XByline style is: Gal-Byline,MyrSky FairlyBExt 565/700,

9.5/11.5, 10c10m30y.By is in lowercase and the name
is in all caps. XXXDescription is in MyrSky-SemiBold
550/550, 9.5/11, white. Style sheet is Gallery text.
Everything is rag-right. First line has no indent (set it
manually).XXX
X28
X29

Gallery-New Title style, 10/11.5, 10c10m40y

by BARNEY GUMBLE

XByline style is: Gal-Byline,MyrSky FairlyBExt 565/700,

9.5/11.5, 10c10m30y.By is in lowercase and the name
is in all caps. XXXDescription is in MyrSky-SemiBold
550/550, 9.5/11, white. Style sheet is Gallery text.
Everything is rag-right. First line has no indent (set it
Winter Veil
manually).XXX
X38b y R O B E R T G E N D L E R
X39This crescent-shaped nebula, IC 443, is believed
to be the remnant of an ancient supernova explosion. Informally
known
among amateurs
as
Gallery-New
Title style,
10/11.5,
10c10m40y
b y A L the
I C E Winter
IN CHA
I N Safter its resemblance to the
Veil,
brighter
larger Veil Nebula
in Cygnus,
it is
XByline
style is:and
Gal-Byline,MyrSky
FairlyBExt
565/700,
located
roughly 12 is
east
of Eta Geminorum.
9.5/11.5,
10c10m30y.By
in lowercase
and the name
is in all caps. XXXDescription is in MyrSky-SemiBold
A Snake
in theStyle
Skysheet is Gallery text.
550/550,
9.5/11, white.
b y J AisS rag-right.
O N W A R EFirst line has no indent (set it
Everything
Coiling across a Moons diameter of sky is the
manually).XXX
X48Snake or S Nebula, also known as Barnard 72.
X49This dark cloud of absorbing dust is located 112
north-northeast of Theta Ophiuchi. Lacking nearby stars to Title
illuminate
it, the
Snake makes
its
Gallery-New
style,
10/11.5,
10c10m40y
by JAM
E S B R O known
WN
presence
by blocking the light of background
stars.
XByline
style is:
Gal-Byline,MyrSky FairlyBExt 565/700,
2000 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

Sky & Telescope September 2000

137

Pinwheel Galaxy
by ROBERT GENDLER

Due to its size and relative closeness, M101 in Ursa Major is bright enough to be a popular subject for astrophotography. A careful examination of the image reveals numerous red emission nebulae (H II regions), peppered across
the galaxys spiral arms. Some of these knots of glowing gas are prominent enough to have received their own
designations as separate deep-sky objects during early visual surveys of the sky conducted during the 19th century.

HOW THEY DID IT

Antares and Rho Ophiuchi

Death Valley Nights

Astro-Physics 4-inch f/6 refractor and Pentax 67

medium-format camera. Single 45-minute exposure
on gas-hypersensitized Kodak Pro 400 PPF color-negative film. Field is 4 wide, centered at right ascension
16h 25m, declination 25 15. North is at upper left.

35-mm camera with 35-mm f/2.8 lens, 40-minute

exposure on Fuji Velvia color-transparency film pushprocessed one stop to ISO 100.

A Snake in the Sky

Winter Veil
Takahashi FCT 150 (6-inch) f/5 refractor and SBIG ST8E CCD camera. 120-minute unfiltered exposure (12
exposures of 10 minutes each combined) at the cameras full resolution. Color information derived from
20-minute exposures made through red, green, and
blue filters with the camera operated in 2 2 binned
mode. Field is 45 wide centered at right ascension 6h
16.9m, declination +22 30. North is at right.

Many of the astro imagers whose work appears in Sky & Telescope have
electronic galleries on the Internet. We provide links to them on our World
Wide Web site. http://www.skypub.com.
138

September 2000 Sky & Telescope

2000 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

Meade 16-inch LX200 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope

at f/10 used in altazimuth mode with a field derotator. Two 60-minute exposures on hypered Kodak
Pro 400 PPF color-negative film. Digitized files combined with Picture Window and processed with Adobe
Photoshop. Field is 35 wide centered at right ascension 17h 24.2m, declination 23 38. North is up.

Pinwheel Galaxy
Same equipment and technique as Winter Veil
image. 90-minute unfiltered exposure combined with
10-minute red, green, and blue exposures. Field is 16
wide, centered at right ascension 14h 03.3m, declination +54 22. North is at left.