The Milky Way

Sunday 12th February 2023

Please view large!

After attending "Lego Church" at the local Methodist Church, I headed further North to Wark. I had booked on an astrophotography nightscape workshop and the forecast was a clear sky, so I was keeping my fingers crossed. 

On the drive up there was full cloud cover but as I arrived it looked like it was starting to break up. The workshop started at 5.30pm with 2hrs of instruction covering some basics, an introduction to the night sky and the best camera settings. The instructor kept having a look outside but it had clouded over again and there were only a few occasional gaps. At 7.30pm we had a break and it was time to go outside, a few stars had appeared but then clouds were teasing us. However, by 8.15pm then clouds started to depart and very rapidly more and more stars began to appear. Quite soon after we were treated to a real clear sky full of stars. 

So, here we have my first ever photo of the Milky Way (with a bit of light pollution at the bottom thanks to the mist). Also visible on the photo are:- 
The Andromeda Galaxy
The Pleiades
Mars
Capella
Aldebaran
And ... between Mars and Aldebaran ... I am reliably informed that, when zoomed in, the comet has been captured. He said it is that blurred blob that looks different from the others ... they all looked the same to me! :-)

The extra shows Orion - with Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, Rigel, Saiph, Orion's belt and sword and the Orion nebula shows up within the sword. 

We also had chance to look through the telescope and see Orion's nebula in amazing detail. 

I have more photos to process. I found it fascinating but realise that I really need to learn more about the stars so I understand what I am looking at!