Ad Astra Observatory

It is hard to describe how much fun I had shooting widefields from the tripod. A lot of the shots came up out of focus, and several more came up with star trails, but it was just a blast.

Our campsite under the Sagittarius Milky Way.

I really need to build a panorama out of these three, covering the sky from The Summer Triangle in the East to Sagittarius in the West:

Later in the evening, I caught an even further reach of the Milky Way, and an old friend, The Great Andromeda Galaxy, M31 in this shot of Casseiopeia and Perseus:

And finally, in a stroke of luck, I caught this meteor (or perhaps a satellite) tumbling through the frame of this photo:

All images were shot with the Canon 350D, 18-55mm kit lens set to 18mm @ f/5.6, with exposures around 1 minute (some a little longer, some a little shorter; I was timing them by listening to the iPod — “just up to the next chorus”).