By Elmarie van Rooyen | 2025-03-01

Omega Centauri, from 37 degrees North
On 03/03/2025 02:40 am by Steven Bellavia | Website | Smithfield, VA
This was my first attempt for the very elusive and strange Omega Centauri, from Virginia.
I have succeeded several times on Long Island NY, both visually and photographically, with Omega Centauri only 1 degree above the horizon.
Being 4 degrees further south really helps.
This are from 2:40 AM this morning. You can just see the horizon at the bottom of the uncropped frame, which is 5.1 degrees tall, in a stacked 22 x 1-second exposure, no tracking, on a manual alt-az mount.
And then I centered it and took 126 x 1-second exposures, with some cropping, which is the inset image
William Optics WhiteCat 51mm, f/4.9 Petzval refractor
Canon EOS SL3 camera
Explore Scientific Twilight I alt-az head on ArtCise tripod
126x1-second exposure
30 drake frames
aligned and stacked in PixInsight