Maybe I should
apologize for coming back with another story on the Milky Way. Yes I have
talked about this topic before, in this
blog. But hey, the Milky Way is large and old enough to deserve many angles of
view- metaphorically speaking. In reality, we are stuck with the same
perspective of it all the time, since there are humans in this planet. But
still, the view of our Galaxy from home is one of the most spectacular sights a
person can take, and we never get tired of it. When you are watching those
starry clouds, traversed with dark lanes of dust and gas, you are seeing the
biggest thing you can ever aspire to see- unless travel through space-time is
quickly invented and made available to the mortals. Consider that if we shrink
the sun to the size of a pea, about 4 or 5 millimeters, at the same scale
Earth, a tine dust speck of just 40 microns, would be at half a meter of
distance. The nearest star, Proxima Centauri, would be at about 140 kilometers.
And our Galaxy, at the same scale, would be 3.3 million kilometers in diameter!
About 10 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon… and the Sun just the
size of a pea. Try to grasp how big is that thing, the next time you look at
that bright lane in the sky, the Path to Santiago de Compostela… Now I could
take the opportunity to again discuss the stupidity of light pollution, which
is depriving most of us and our children, entire generations of people, from this most amazing sight. But I'll leave
that aspect for another occassion. This summer I have had the opportunity to
see the Milky way in several places throughout the Iberian peninsula. We are
relatively lucky in that respect, to have lots of mountains and relatively low
population density in many of them.
Two-panel mosaic including the tail of the Scorpion. All photos (also the ones below) taken with a Canon 40D modified for astrophotography, with LPS filter, 85mm lens at f/3.5 om a Teegul Skypatrol II mount. Each panel between 1 and 2 hours of exposure, in subframes of 4 minutes.
First I have to
mention one very special night… my brother-in-law organized a party in the
middle of Los Monegros, a barren but beautiful area near Zaragoza. Only about
25km from this large city, as the crow flies, but the area itself is empty of
people for many tens of kilometers. So he took us there, to a shepherd's
shelter, with food and drinks, and after dusk, he projected the movie Star Wars
on the outer wall of the shelter. Luckily, that night we had a very transparent
sky, thanks to the wind from the north, el Cierzo, that was blowing, dry and
cold, and made many of us shriver in cold in the middle of August. When the
last hint of deep blue dissapeared from the sky, the Milky Way emerged,
impressive and unexpected… I could see the grainy structure of the big lumps in
Cygnus, Aquila, Scutum, and the dark corridors between them… I was seeing the
real Milky Way, and at the same time listening to the music of Star Wars,
resonating and expanding in the hills. Hans Solo coming to the rescue, flying almost
really through Sagittarius, that I was seeing at the same time, even with poor
eye adaptation, just raising my eyes a bit. From time to time, a Perseid
crossed the sky, like just another spaceship from the Empire in our small
screen. Pity that, because a number of people were not prepared for the cold
and intense wind, we had to leave early, except those that slept in the
shelter… A magical night, ¡gracias cuñao!
This is another two-photo mosaic, area of Scutum, Serpens. Notice M11, M16 and M17.
I will also mention
the view from a hidden corner in Murcia… the canyon of the Argos river. Only
because of the name of the river, it would be worth the visit, but the place
and surroundings are remarkable in many aspects. Last year I was also in the
area (see the entry about Revolcadores, from July 2nd 2012, "Wield Field
Astrophotography from Revolcadores") and I wanted to return to see more.
Anyway, from the bottom of the canyon, where our rural lodge was placed (and
old river mill) was not the best place to watch the Milky Way, but still I
could see a lot (latitude 38deg North, 3 deg lower than home). I took some
photos, part of the long project to make a broad mosaic of the
Saggitarius-Scorpius using my 85mm lens.
For now, I have two pieces of the mosaic with panels from Revolcadores, from
Río Argos, and from Torroja in Tarragona. Maybe next year I'll complete it. For
now, I attach here a piece formed by four panels. From the first night in the
Argos, I remember an incredible sight with binoculars: M7, Ptolemy's Cluster
almost in the same line of sight as the center of the Galaxy, huge and
perfectly clear and steady, about to set over the edge of the canyon, just next
to the black silhouette of a big oak tree. Later I made a pencil sketch in my
notebook, but anyway it is in my memory.
This is a 4 panel mosaic, including the first one above and the photo from the July 2nd 2012 entry in this blog. See above for technical details of each panel. Processed with Pixinsight Core1.8
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