Night Sky

Tonight we finally had an evening without clouds. I played around with the "Manual" setting on my camera, and with the assistance of Photoshop, came up with some decent star pictures.

Saturn (top) and Mars (Middle) have been moving towards each other for the last few months. Tonight they also line up nicely with Antares in Scorpio. Mars and Antares are noticeably red to the naked eye.

Here's an annotated version of the picture.

Here you can see the entire scorpion, including the hooked tail at the lower left.

To the east of Scorpio is Sagittarius. Officially, Sagittarius is "The Archer", but it really looks more like a teapot.

A closer look at Sagittarius.

And finally, the Big Dipper -- probably the best known asterism in the northern sky. It's not a constellation, because it's part of Ursa Major (Big Bear).