Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Scorpius (Sco)  ·  Contains:  1 Sco  ·  6 Sco)  ·  Nur (π Sco  ·  The star 2 Sco  ·  The star 3 Sco  ·  The star 4 Sco  ·  The star Fang  ·  The star b Sco
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π-Scorpii - A Secret Beneath The Scorpion's Claw, Ali Alobaidly
π-Scorpii - A Secret Beneath The Scorpion's Claw
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π-Scorpii - A Secret Beneath The Scorpion's Claw

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π-Scorpii - A Secret Beneath The Scorpion's Claw, Ali Alobaidly
π-Scorpii - A Secret Beneath The Scorpion's Claw
Powered byPixInsight

π-Scorpii - A Secret Beneath The Scorpion's Claw

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You may be mesmerized by Scorpio's claws, reflecting the light of multiple stars and painting them yellow and blue, furiously beautiful. But have you ever looked underneath? Antares demands most of the attention, and rightfully so. Scorpio's tail pierces the heart of the Milky Way, and many famous nebulae are scattered in its wake—the Prawn, the Cat's Paw, and other Sharpless objects in between. Yet, it is still baffling that this triplet star system, π-Scorpii, and the surrounding gas and dust are overlooked by many.

This image, captured in the deserts of Kuwait, is a reminder that beauty exists everywhere, in all things, and it is we who sometimes lack the capacity to behold it. It took a total of 8 hours of integration time to reveal the clouds of dust you see in this image. The bright red emissions of Hydrogen Alpha took a further 5 hours of narrowband imaging to reveal. π-Scorpii peaks at 34° in Kuwait, so a constant battle with the horizon is expected. Fighting the gradient of light this low altitude introduces was challenging, though with modern methods, a clean image is possible. The Hydrogen-Alpha signal was extracted, subtracted with methods of continuum subtraction, and added to the main image. 

It is worth remembering, that the universe holds endless marvels, waiting to be discovered by those who seek them. Clear Skies!

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π-Scorpii - A Secret Beneath The Scorpion's Claw, Ali Alobaidly