Last night astronomical twilight ended near 10 pm and the Moon did not rise for another 45 min. Between those two times the sky was exceptionally dark. The SQML meter pointed at the northern sky above Polaris measured 21.84 mpsas. It rarely gets darker than that. Even better, none of the neighbors had porch lights blazing.
Two lenses were used: a 7Artisans 7.5mm f/2.8 fish-eye for wide views of the Milky Way and a Sigma 56mm f/1.4 for narrower views.
In the middle image above some small puffy clouds were lingering near the zenith. In the bottom picture the Andromeda Galaxy appears just over the cabin roof. Some faint green airglow is visible along the northern horizon.
The section of Sagittarius displayed above was captured with the 56mm lens and a Hoya Softon filter. The circle just above center marks the location of the asteroid (7) Flora and the star Ross 154.
Here is a closer look:
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| Ross 154 (solid red circle), asteroid (7) Flora (dotted turquoise circle) |
The asteroid (7) Flora was discovered in 1847 and is the closest large main-belt asteroid. It is currently at magnitude 9.7 and 10.7 light-minutes distant.
Ross 154 is a magnitude-10.4 red dwarf that is the 7th closest star system at a distance of 9.7 ly.
On the right-hand side of this image is the globular cluster M22, which is 10,000 ly distant.
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| Region in Sagittarius just above the Milky Way core. |
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