Our Galaxy Itself...

contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The Galaxy Song
Eric Idle

A handy combination of emergency blip and serious experiment! I've been wondering how the little "big camera" would do if I pointed it skywards, and having failed to blip Monkey Boy's cracking goal against Ardee Hi, it was this or the fish!

Surprisingly, the camera does much, much better than my eyes. Naked eye can manage Orion, Aldeberan and Jupiter at the very top of the shot, but I was amazed just how many stars were there even before I started pushing the image in Photoshop...

Anyway, while you're all here, say hi! to Kathee who joins us from sunny Arizona! And a very belated welcome to tp and Jack who've been waiting patiently to be introduced!