Starscape

We had a few pretty clear nights lately.  I'm still waiting for an epic clear night, but we only get a few of those a year, and this has been a cloudy year.

Here is a shot from the dirt road between Sabadeco and Rincon.  You are looking towards the southwest, over the Radio Nederlands transmitting site.
BelNem and the TWR towers can be seen at the lower left side.  Bopec is just out of the frame to the right.
The bright lights along the horizon towards the right side of the radio station are ships.  One tanker was super bright.  You can see the trail an airplane made, low on the horizon, during the 20 seconds the shutter was open.


I have a few hundred images like this that I hope to make into a time lapse movie in the near future.
You can click on these images to see them in a larger form.  The second picture includes a few constellation lines and names to help you orient yourself in the sky.  The eta Carina nebula complex can be seen half way between the Southern Cross and the false cross.  The false cross always looks larger than the real cross.  I'm not sure why they look the same here... might be lens distortion.  I'm pretty sure that I've marked the false cross correctly, because there is a star cluster to the right of the right hand star and below the bottom star.