Although we can’t see the Milky Way in early evening now, we can see it around midnight or later. Marc Toso wrote:
I drove out into the center of Nevada hoping to catch a glimpse of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower, the dust of the famous Halley’s Comet. I failed to catch any meteors with my camera but instead found a massive crater. Not a meteor crater, but a volcanic crater called Lunar Crater. Interestingly, this landscape was used to train Apollo astronauts in 1972.
The airglow was strong that night, as seen by the red and green smeared across the sky. And skies were clear, the planet Jupiter can be seen on the right, riding the Dark Horse Nebula.
Another interesting note, the glow behind the hill on the right is light pollution from Las Vegas, 163 miles [262 km] away as the crow flies!
Thank you, Marc. By the way, we received a second photo very similar to Marc’s, taken a day earlier and several hours later by the clock, over a different landscape. See it below.
Bottom line: The starry arc of the Milky Way over a volcanic crater – Lunar Crater – in Nevada. Plus the Milky Way over a mountain silhouette in Colorado.
Deborah Byrd created the EarthSky radio series in 1991 and founded EarthSky.org in 1994. Prior to that, she had worked for the University of Texas McDonald Observatory since 1976, and created and produced their Star Date radio series. Today, she serves as Editor-in-Chief of this website. She has won a galaxy of awards from the broadcasting and science communities, including having an asteroid named 3505 Byrd in her honor. In 2020, she won the Education Prize from the American Astronomical Society, the largest organization of professional astronomers in North America. A science communicator and educator since 1976, Byrd believes in science as a force for good in the world and a vital tool for the 21st century. "Being an EarthSky editor is like hosting a big global party for cool nature-lovers," she says.
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