Dec 07, 2022

Milky Way Galactic Centre over the Brighton Palace Pier [Brighton Astro Calendar 2023 - February]

MILKY WAY GALACTIC CENTRE OVER THE BRIGHTON PALACE PIER

The Milky Way's galactic centre dominates the sky above Brighton's Palace Pier. The pink nebulae found in the core are named Eagle, Omega and Lagoon.

The darker parts of the Milky Way are interstellar dust lanes, an accumulation of gas, plasma, and dust; with the dark lane running through the middle of the core known as the 'Great Rift'.

[Link to see this photo in the Brighton Seafront gallery without the labels!]

OBJECTS OF THE MILKY WAY GALACTIC CORE (from left to right):

The following are known as Messier objects, a few of the 110 astronomical objects that the French astronomer Charles Messier catalogued. They are all located in the constellation of Sagittarius.

Omega Nebula (M17): It is an open cluster of approximately 35 stars amidst a cloud of gas - these hot stars cause the nebula's brightness in the sky. It is approximately 6,000 light-years away from Earth.

Eagle Nebula (M16): It is an open star cluster and cloud of hot gas, containing a diffuse nebula and dust lanes known as the Eagle Nebula due to their resemblance of a flying eagle. It is approximately 7,000 light-years from Earth.

Trifid Nebula (M20): It has a very large diffuse nebula and is illuminated by a 7th magnitude star located within it. It is approximately 5,000 light-years away from Earth.

Lagoon Nebula (M8): A cloud of gas illuminated by a 5.9 magnitude star. It is 5,200 light-years from Earth and approximately 150 light-years in diameter.

M23: M23 is an open cluster of stars approximately 2,050 light years from Earth.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION:

To capture a lot more 'data' from the sky in order to bring out more detail in the Milky Way I took a number of long exposures which I then stacked together, effectively multiplying the data captured.

In doing so I was able to let in a lot more light to my camera's sensor, but this resulted in the lights on the Palace Pier 'blowing out' all the details in the pier and making it almost unrecognisable. Therefore, in order to bring back the detail in the pier I then took another shorter exposure, making sure not to over-expose or 'clip' the highlights (resulting in a loss of information).

The light pollution from the pier created an unwanted yellow haze all around the lower sky and clouds, which I desaturated and colour corrected in post-processing.

I don't normally share 'unedited' versions of photos (and they don't normally look quite as 'messy' as this!), but I thought I'd share the details I captured of the Milky Way core above the Palace Pier to prove the authenticity of the photo. As you can see the very long exposure has made the pier completely white! n.b. I should mention that this photo has had a fair amount of light editing as well to make the details visible!