Been a while since I made a run down to the Oak Hill. My goal was to get an image of the International Space Station crossing the Milky Way. I noodled it all out for a couple days and was pleased with the predicted weather forecasts. After greeting all my coyote buddies, with an Eastern Screech-owl singing soprano, I set to work. Alas, although the sky looked clear, there was a lot of upper atmosphere turbulence, thus the Milky Way was not to be seen.
This is a shot in the dark—or right direction. ISS can be seen in the lower central part of the image. It’s a 2-minute-long exposure and the stars are still pin-point sharp thanks to my new star tracker. (You have to look at these on a large monitor or double click to really see the stars.)
I made another attempt at imaging the Milky Way with a long exposure. Here you see a hint of the edge of our galaxy in the lower left of the image. Squint a bit. It’s there. The other big white thingy is a cloud.
Finally, the surprise of the night (thanks to Susan for unraveling the mystery) is this image of an aurora, not seen naked eye. The camera sensor can pick these things up. I was baffled by the purple stripe and green coloring. Susan took one look and said, “It’s an aurora.” Of course. I knew that—not. I thought I was imaging the Swan constellation.
Witt’s End 