Antares and M4 Cluster

[celeron787]

Short session last night which went surprisingly well. Only managed about 40mins integration, not enough to bring out the yellow antares nebula.
But focus of the image is the antares star and M4 cluster.

Antares is a red supergiant star shining boldly in the Scorpius constellation. Antares is also known as the “Heart of the Scorpion”.

M4 globular cluster is located only 1.3 degrees west of Antares. It is the closest globular cluster to Earth. Because of its apparent magnitude of 5.9 and proximity to Antares, one of the brightest stars in the night sky, M4 is relatively easy to find with a small telescope. The cluster is best spotted in July.

Annotated: https://nova.astrometry.net/annotated_full/5453271

Sony A6400
William Optics RedCat 51 Petzval APO
Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer
Star Adventurer Tripod

Singapore, Bortle 8
ISO400
Light Frames - 80 x 30secs (manually dithered in RA and DEC)
Dark Frames - 30 x 30secs
Flat Frames - 35
Bias Frames - 50

Deep Sky Stacker
StarTools - 50% bin, Autodev, Crop, Wipe, Super Structure, Decon, Contrast, Color, Super Structure, Denoise


Antares and M4 Cluster by Yun Chong Lim, on Flickr

[hhzhang]

Very sharp corner to corner!

Actually last night the moon was a bit bright and only about 60deg from Antares.

[celeron787]

Very sharp corner to corner!

Actually last night the moon was a bit bright and only about 60deg from Antares.

Haha yes, I was actually practicing drift alignment.
Also I noticed that street lamps are gradually switched to LED lighting which seems to direct their light downwards. Not sure whether that will impact future astrophotography here.