After a long string of cloudy or moonlit nights, there was finally a clear sky last night (01 Sep) with about 40 min of darkness between the end of astronomical twilight at 9:08 pm and the rise of the 19.9-day waning gibbous Moon. The measured sky brightness was 21.4 mpsas, which is very good but not exceptional (for this area),
The following images were obtained with a Panasonic Leica 12mm f/1.4 lens and an OM-5ii camera.
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| Sparkle-6 filter |
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| low-pass digital filter |
The image above was obtained with no physical filter on the lens, but a digital low-pass filter (3x3 median) was applied in post-processing. This suppresses the myriad faint stars and lets the dark dust clouds of the Milky Way stand out more clearly.
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| Arcturus in the airglow above Bristol Head. Softon filter |
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| View to the north: Big Dipper and Little Dipper. Softon filter |
