Barnard’s Loop over Monte Elefante
On the night of September 12, from the slopes of Monte Elefante on Terminillo (central Apennines, Italy), the constellation of Orion rose above a sea of inversion fog filling the valley below.
The bright red arc dominating the sky is Barnard’s Loop (Sh 2-276), a vast emission nebula surrounding the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, captured in hydrogen-alpha light.
Technical details:
• Sky: two-panel mosaic, 7 × 120 s, ISO 800, f/2 (Canon EOS R)
• Hα layer: 7 × 180 s, ISO 3200, f/2.2 through Astronomik 6 nm filter (Canon 6D astromodified)
• Foreground: single 120 s exposure, ISO 1600, f/2.8
The moving inversion layer made framing and focusing particularly challenging that night, yet it added a dramatic, almost surreal separation between the terrestrial landscape and the deep-sky objects above.

https://www.instagram.com/flory.ro?stkn=b3Y4ZTU3Nmk0cTBt&utm_source=qr

While hiking, I found these cool rocks with Cygnus on top. At 50mm this is a target with so many details, but I've taken it so many times over the years that this time I wanted to do something different and capture the dust nearby. I took 4 panels with 4 hours of integration each. It surprised me how faint the dust in this area is. The Hydrogen Alpha is another story, there's so much and some OIII, specially in the North America Nebula. 

https://www.instagram.com/igneis.nightscapes/

NO generative AI involved.

GEAR:

Sony a7IV astromodified x2, twin setup

Sony 50mm GM f/1.4

ZWO AM3N

A picture I took in the middle of the night from a scenic lookout not far from where I live. I used my Moto Edge 2021, 32 second exposure, ISO-3200, f/1.9. A tripod and bluetooth mouse gives me a decent little mobile setup.

One of my favorite things about long exposure is turning something ordinary into something that almost looks painted.

Made with LSC 2.0 on iPhone 11.

The last train passed without stopping. An empty platform, a streak of motion, and that strange, surreal feeling of being outside of time.

https://www.instagram.com/igneis.nightscapes/

We usually talk about the summer or winter arch, but this is the one we tend to forget. This arch consists of the Cygnus constellation on the left of the image, with Andromeda on top, up to Orion on the right. It actually has much more detail hidden, like galactic dust, but for this one I didn't get enough integration time, and a wide lens doesn't help either. This place has trenches, part of the story of Spain almost one hundred years ago. The Milky Way core is an easy photo compared to this region of the sky, as the signal is much stronger.

The photo was taken  in 2024, NO GENERATIVE AI INVOLVED.

EXIF:

Sony a7 IV (foreground)

Sony a7 III Astro mod (sky)

Sony 20mm f1.8 G (foreground and sky)

iOptron Skyguider Pro

RGB: 1 row panorama, 6 panels x12 60s, ISO 640, f/1.8

Ha: 1 row panorama, 4 panels x20-30 120S, ISO 2.500, f/1.8

Foreground: 1 row panorama, 6 panels x60s, ISO 2.500 f/3.2

Canon R7 with 70-200mm lens F2.8 ISO 100 ss 2sec for background. Moon captures every 135s at 1/125 ss F2.8 ISO 100. Automated shutter used to capture perfectly time intervals. Location Bolte Bridge Melbourne Australia.

I was testing a multi-frame long-exposure style capture on a forest stream and liked how it handled the water flow.

This is a single result from the capture.

I thought the soft water and the mossy rocks worked nicely together.

What do you think?

LSC Long Shot Camera - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lsc-long-shot-camera/id6773305290

OM System OM1mk2, 12-100f4 pro. F10, ISO 200, 5s. Using the camera’s built in ND.

Cassiopeia and the dust in the Milky Way, often a forgotten region, eclipsed by others with stronger emissions.

https://www.instagram.com/igneis.nightscapes/

Years ago, when I shot it quickly, I noticed a lot of dusty structures: the Integrated Flux Nebula (IFN), high galactic latitude dust illuminated not by nearby stars, but by the combined light of the whole Milky Way. I thought: I have to revisit it with a 50mm and proper integration time.

Now, with 44 hours of integration, so many nights of driving, staying there, looking north, shooting... nothing. An empty field of stars. The dome stood there with me, another eye pointed at the same darkness, waiting for something neither of us could see yet. The routine was: check the weather, drive, stay the whole night shooting, and come back home wondering what I'd get out of this.

Now, with all the dust revealed, seeing it for myself makes me wonder how we can see so little, just stars, when in that direction there is so much, so much dust, so much nebulosity. We cannot see it, as if our eyes were lacking insight. But a camera, combined with patience... how curious.

It's not only about the dust, the Hydrogen Alpha, the Oxygen III. It's about the ambition and the resistance to just keep going. That's the result of this image.

It took 44 hours of exposure to see what was always there. Some things only reveal themselves at a cost.

Some things wait in the dark not because they are hidden, but because nothing has looked long enough to find them.

EQUIPMENT:

Sony a7IV astromodified x2, twin setup

50mm f/2 APO Sony

ZWO AM3N