Indian summer, so the summer welcomes autumn in the sky.
Probably the last sunny week before it will get cold, and autumn fogs will envelop my countryside and made observations quite hard for some time.
The retiring summer sky objects are represented by Milky Way in the constellation of Swan. The brightest star in the photo is Sadr. Above it there is well known Butterfly Nebula (IC1318) that has three bright patches, each one about 50 light years large. At the bottom to the left shines small Crescent Nebula (NGC6888). Crescent nebula consists of some shells of gas energised by a very energetic Wolf-Rayet star. The whole photo is filled with star clusters, dark and light nebulas that are placed 3000-6000 light years away from us.
Photo was taken with 200mm telephoto lens at f/5.6. Exposure 40×5 minutes at ISO800, Canon 20D modded camera.
The incoming autumn season is represented by well known Andromeda Galaxy (M31). This huge, spiral galaxy contains about one trillion stars (1012) – it is over three times more than our Milky Way, and it is the closest to us spiral galaxy. M31 is about 2.5 million light years away from Earth. It is visible with naked eye under good conditions, and spans about three degrees over the sky (which is six times more than apparent Moon diameter), but only central, bright part is visible without optical instrument.
Photo was taken with the same setup as above, exposure was 80×3 minutes.
Original size photos are available under links at the photo titles.