Since I started taking wide-field pictures of the sky last year, the constellation Leo has been my most-photographed target. Being high overhead in my area during its prime viewing season, its resulting images suffer the least from the harsh light pollution closer to the horizon. It is also an easy constellation to trace once you identify the anchor stars of Regulus and Denebola.
This image was produced in DeepSkyStacker from about 25 25-sec exposures, f/2.8 and ISO 200. I have settle on these settings based on my earlier pictures this year of Orion, Gemini, and Auriga. Further post-processing attempted to accentuate the bright stars.
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Above Leo and to the left you can see Coma Berenices. It sort of blends in with the other fainter stars directly above Leo. This was in part a trade-off by me – I wanted to show as many stars as possible, at the loss of Coma Berenices blending too much into that fainter star field.
Next on my ongoing astro-imaging tour, I hope, is Jupiter. I took one set of pictures a few weeks ago, but they turned out badly. The skies were clear this weekend but the humidity was stifling. Fortunately, there is plenty of time to see and image Jupiter in 2018, and I am still easily on pace based on prior years and how Jupiter repositions year-to-year. In 2016 I started photographing Jupiter in early April; in 2017, I started in early May. So 2018’s “window” is a few weeks away.
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