Object Information                                            Imaging Details

The 2011 Texas Star Party didn't produce the usual dark, transparent skies that the affair is famous for. Clouds and haze dominated the week. However, the first night gave reasonably transparent skies. This image was taken with my 300mm f/4 lens. It shows some of the myriad of nebulosity and colorful star clusters near the base of the tail/stinger of Scorpius. Collectively, these features have become known as the Northern Jewel Box.

This image marked the end of an era for me. I had used a ToUCam and Steve Barkes' wonderful Guidedog software for years to autoguide my rigs. However, just prior to the star party, I purchased a DFK 31AF03.AS (firewire) camera so that I could run guiding (guide camera and mount control), and image acquisition from my MacBook Pro. The change required a switch to PhD guiding (since it is ported for Macs as well as PCs). The new system works beautifully, but I want to give one last shout out for Steve and his most excellent program that served my autoguiding needs for many years.

This region of the sky is as beautiful through binoculars or a low power telescope as it is in photos.

Clicking the above image will bring up a higher resolution image which upon mouseover will identify the various NGC, IC, etcetera objects in the image.

Lens:

Canon 300mm f/4 (used at f/5)