To infinity, and beyond

minicoop1985 · Aug 21, 2014

Starry Night by longm1985, on Flickr

How did I do here?

tirediron · Aug 21, 2014

Nice!

pgriz · Aug 21, 2014

Nice view of the double cluster, Capella, Algol. I think I see a meteor streak at the bottom. Was some of the skyglow due to the moon?

And to answer your question - you did well. I'm actually surprised that you're getting pretty decent sky transparency right down to the horizon.

minicoop1985 · Aug 21, 2014

The sky glow is Green Bay, WI. I was about 30 miles west of the stadium. Thanks for the feedback, guys! Totally moonless night-I saw that and had to do it. Thanks for the info, PGriz. I had no idea what I was looking at in terms of stars. There's nothing like 30 seconds, f2.8, ISO 6400.

While I was out there, I also snagged this for fun:

Starstuff by longm1985, on Flickr

Any idea what we're looking at here? I mean I know it's part of the Milky Way, but what cluster is this?

mmaria · Aug 21, 2014

minicoop1985 said:
How did I do here?

I like it

pgriz · Aug 21, 2014

Well, that smudge at the lower left is the Andromeda Galaxy with which we'll be merging in about 2 billion years or so. You can see the galaxy with your naked eye under the right conditions, and you can boast that you're sble to see 2.1 million light-years away.

The "Northern Coalsack" is at the middle of the image, about a quarter from the right edge, and marks the start of the very dense gas and dust clouds the are in the plane of the galaxy, shielding the brighter center portions from our view (since we are in the galactic suburbs), about 2/3 of the way out from the center).

So the right side shows the stars of the constellation of Cygnus, the Swan, and the left side shows some of the stars of Cassiopeia, the Queen. Between the two you have Cepheus (the King, upper part of the image), and Lacerta (the Lizard) along the center. Pegasis is at the bottom of the image.

The pinkish glow just to the left of the Coalsack is the North America Nebula. There are lots more objects that I can see, but I'd need a higher resolution image to identify them properly.