The Galactic Kiwi

This image captures the central bulge region of the Milky Way - besides the incredibly dense, rich star fields in this region and the many nebulae and deep sky objects of various kinds, there is also a great deal of dust. At the centre of this image lies a conspicuous gathering of stars and dust lanes that form a very familiar sight for those in New Zealand...the Kiwi bird! Can you spot it?

The Galactic Kiwi (also known In other parts of the world as The Dark Horse Nebula or Great Dark Horse), is a dark nebula that obscures part of the upper central bulge of the Milky Way. It lies in the equatorial constellation of Ophiuchus (the Serpent Bearer), near its borders with the more famous constellations Scorpio and Sagittarius. It is a large, visible feature of the Milky Way's Great Rift, uniting several individually catalogued dark nebulae (e.g., Barnard 59, 65–67, and 78), including the Pipe Nebula (the beak of the kiwi). It is easily visible on clear moonless nights from non-light polluted skies.

Towards the bottom of this image lies the beautiful, colourful Rho Ophiuchus cloud complex, imaged HERE in detail, and HERE in even more detail. I don’t often shoot very wide images like this, but on this particular night the rising core of the Milky Way looked truly stunning. I made this image by ‘piggybacking’ the Nikon Z6 mirrorless with my splendid Sigma Art 50mm f1.4 lens on top of my scope, shooting several hours-worth of 2 minute subframes which were then stacked.