The Creator's Pallete

(Click image for larger view)
Due to the limited amount of light that reaches our eyes from the stars, most of the color that exists in the cosmos remains hidden from our observation. Only when we look into the heavens with the lense of a camera, and allow it to gather photons for an extended period of time, do we begin to appreciate the artistic eye of the Creator of our Universe.

Some 500 light years away, in the constellation Scorpio, lies one of the most colorful areas of the Milky Way Galaxy, the Rho Ophiuchus Molecular Cloud complex. It surrounds the triple star Rho Ophiuchi, which is located in the right side of this image. Antares, a giant red star, on the left side of the image, aggresively blows solar winds through the cloud, forming the ionized yellow nebulae that are seen surrounding the star. Antares is 40,000 times more luminous than our sun, and if placed where our sun is located, would extend out to Jupiter. M4, a large globular cluster, can be seen in the lower left hand corner of the image. The dark nebula in the middle of the image is L1688 and is a site of intense star formation.

This image is my first attempt at a mosaic. It represents about 15 hours of data aquisition.

Details:
Date: July 2007
Location: Starlodge Observatory
Scope: FSQ 106
Camera: STL 11000
LRGB 120:60:60:60 for all quadrants of Mosaic