My Sky on September 1
Finding the Milky Way over Lake Ontario
I can step outside my house and see stars over Lake Ontario. With a long exposure, my camera can capture more stars than I can see.
Conditions have to be perfect. The moon needs to be looking elsewhere and the neighbors need to have turned off their lights. A few wispy clouds are okay, but not the heavy overcast sky typical of the Great Lakes.
Fifty miles across the lake, Canada provides the skyglow (otherwise known as light pollution). Always changing, it defines the horizon on a dark night.
Even after six years on the north coast of New York, I’m still learning. I only just realized that the Milky Way inhabits our sky just east of the North Star this time of year (even if the glowing galactic center is to the light-polluted, suburbanized south of us). I figured it out by finally taking the time to use a physical star chart. (Stargazing apps can’t give me this big picture.)
The stars comfort me. No matter what earthbound fools have wrought, the universe rolls on.
Technical: Sony α9 mirrorless camera, 20 seconds at f/2.8, focal length 12 mm., ISO 6400. DNG format, processed in Adobe Lightroom to tease out the Milky Way galaxy, not quite discernible to the naked eye.
