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Description
On summer nights far from the lights of civilization, our galaxy lives up to its ancient name - appearing as a trail of hazy light stretching from horizon to horizon. In long exposure photographs, though, the rich colors of the night sky reveal themselves.

The bright red and yellow glow of the central core swings low above the southern treeline (right), and the dusty spiral arms become bluer and more sparse the farther north (left) one looks. This is because you are now looking outward toward the edge of the galaxy rather than inward, and the young bluish stars dominate the outer spiral arms. The other side of the core farther to the south is only visible from near the equator and the southern hemisphere.

Reddish Antares and brilliant yellow-white Jupiter shine in the south and southeast, while Polaris (the north star), Cassiopeia, and the distant Double Cluster sit just above the trees in the north. Overhead (middle) shines the Summer Triangle formed by the stars Vega, Deneb and Altair. The uneven borders show the limits of the camera's field of view on the 4 frames of this mosaic.

Kenko Skymemo R camera tracker, Canon Rebel XSI, Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 lens at 17mm, f/5.6. 4 frame mosaic, each frame 5 x 3 min at ISO 800. All processing done in Photoshop CS2.

Description
On summer nights far from the lights of civilization, our galaxy lives up to its ancient name - appearing as a trail of hazy light stretching from horizon to horizon. In long exposure photographs, though, the rich colors of the night sky reveal themselves.

The bright red and yellow glow of the central core swings low above the southern treeline (right), and the dusty spiral arms become bluer and more sparse the farther north (left) one looks. This is because you are now looking outward toward the edge of the galaxy rather than inward, and the young bluish stars dominate the outer spiral arms. The other side of the core farther to the south is only visible from near the equator and the southern hemisphere.

Reddish Antares and brilliant yellow-white Jupiter shine in the south and southeast, while Polaris (the north star), Cassiopeia, and the distant Double Cluster sit just above the trees in the north. Overhead (middle) shines the Summer Triangle formed by the stars Vega, Deneb and Altair. The uneven borders show the limits of the camera's field of view on the 4 frames of this mosaic.

Kenko Skymemo R camera tracker, Canon Rebel XSI, Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 lens at 17mm, f/5.6. 4 frame mosaic, each frame 5 x 3 min at ISO 800. All processing done in Photoshop CS2.