StargazerRon
Did you know that the summer is the best time to see the Milky Way? That’s when we look out from our galactic neighborhood on one of its arms toward its central location where a massive black hole attracts stars, dust, and nebulae—it is then at its brightest from our perspective.
In late spring and early summer it hangs at a diagonal in the southeast, but by August/September it towers vertically to the south/southwest. Here it is from the foot of Stearns Wharf at 10:00 PM on September 1 when lots of folks gathered on the warm Labor Day weekend.
This view was made possible by the moon’s absence and the miracle of digital photography. Full disclosure: it will not look this bright to the unaided eye, but take the time to let your eyes adapt to the low light levels and it should be visible.
Get as far away from artificial lights as possible and wait until the moon sets — also try to avoid looking at your phone as even a brief glimpse at it will compromise your dark adaption.
Very nice, as usual!
Gorgeous, Ron! Another beautiful image. Thank you!
We need to put a serious focus on light pollution. Now only does it take away our ability to see the nightime sky-show, it confuses migrating birds into circling and using up their energy for a long trip and screws up a lot of other species, too. There are downward-focused mega wattage lights. Surely there are other ways to keep car lots, streets and such safe without making it impossible to see anything but the sun and moon.
Luvaduck. Yes. Yes. Yes.