{"id":962865,"date":"2026-11-13T10:10:13","date_gmt":"2026-11-13T10:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/962865\/"},"modified":"2026-11-13T10:10:13","modified_gmt":"2026-11-13T10:10:13","slug":"astrophotographer-captures-stunning-image-of-galactic-witch-playing-with-her-crystal-ball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/962865\/","title":{"rendered":"Astrophotographer captures stunning image of galactic witch playing with her crystal ball"},"content":{"rendered":"

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And her \u201ccrystal ball\u201d is Rigel, a blue-white supergiant located in the neighboring constellation Orion. According to astronomers, the brilliant star is the seventh-brightest in the night sky, some 120,000 times brighter and 20 times more massive than the Sun.<\/p>\n

Latest Videos FromDigital Camera World<\/p>\n

Image 1 of 2<\/p>\n

\"Witches<\/p>\n

The Witches Head Nebula which, supposedly, looks like a witch, extends from the middle-right to bottom-right of the image, 50 light years in reality, while the white-blue supergiant Rigel shines in the lower-centre part of the scene<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Piotr Czerksi)<\/p>\n

\"Portrait<\/p>\n

Piotr Czerski is a Polish astrophotographer who, over the years, has had four images published by NASA’s as its Astronomy Picture of the Day<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Piotr Czerksi)<\/p>\n

\"Witches<\/p>\n

\"Portrait<\/p>\n

Piotr Czerski\u2019s gear and settings<\/p>\n

Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC ProLens: Samyang 135mm f\/2.0 ED UMC <\/a>Exposures:LP filter: 62 \u00d7 300 secondsMultiband filter: 12 \u00d7 300 secondsTotal integration time: 6 hours 10 minutes<\/p>\n

\u201cThe blue reflection nebula is surrounded by a complex network of faint H\u03b1 emission (red visible light emitted by energized hydrogen atoms) and dark dust clouds, revealing subtle structures that are usually lost in shallower exposures,\u201d Czerski<\/a> explained in an Instagram<\/a> post.<\/p>\n

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To capture the scene, the photographer used a ZWO ASI2600MC Pro camera and a Samyang<\/a> 135mm f\/2.0 ED UMC lens, taking 62 exposures with a light pollution filter and a further 12 using a multiband filter, each exposure lasting 300 seconds.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took six hours and ten minutes of total exposure time to capture all the faint details of the nebula,\u201d said Czerski.<\/p>\n

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So brilliant was Czerski\u2019s frame that NASA recently selected it as its Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD), the agency’s publication through which it shares a different and fantastic astro shot each day.<\/p>\n

Czerski\u2019s image was selected as the November 09 APOD, the fourth time the photographer has had an image featured by NASA.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis long-integration view highlights the interplay of gas, dust, and radiation shaping this region of the Orion Molecular Complex (a vast, active star-forming region of interstellar gas and dust located in the constellation Orion),\u201d Czerki said about his recently-published image.<\/p>\n

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Here’s our expert astrophotographer, Jamie Carter’s, take on the best cameras for astrophotography<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Did you know…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":962866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":["post-962865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=962865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/962866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=962865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=962865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=962865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}