A Night Sky Vista from Sardinia
Image Credit & Copyright:
Tomáš Slovinský
How many famous sky objects can you find in this image?
The featured dark sky composite combines over
60 exposures spanning over 220 degrees to create
a veritable menagerie of night sky wonders.
Visible celestial icons include the
Belt of Orion, the
Orion Nebula, the
Andromeda Galaxy, the
California Nebula, and bright stars
Sirius and
Betelgeuse.
You can verify that you found these, if you did, by checking an
annotated version of the image.
A bit harder, though, is finding
Polaris and the
Big Dipper.
Also discernible are several meteors from the Quandrantids meteor shower, red and green
airglow,
and two friends of the astrophotographer.
The picture was captured in January from
Sardinia,
Italy.
You can
see sky wonders in your own
night sky tonight -- including more meteors than usual --
because tonight is near
peak of the yearly Orionids meteor shower.