Wide Field Milky Way Southern Summer Sky From Keota, Colorado
August 2010
   This is 2-shot stitch taken from Keota Colorado, 65 miles east of Ft. Collins, taken on August 6, 2010. Very dark skies, warm night, no wind,
using a Pentax MX 35 mm, with a 50mm lens set at f/5.6, ASA400 Kodak Gold film, this is a VERY wide field (~70*), but only a 7 minute
image, piggybacked on my C-14 and tracking, not guided.    I love the Losmandy CG-11 tripod and mount!!

   These are images of the Southern Summer Sky showing star clusters, nebulae and even a star cloud in the Milky Way, Sagittarius on the left,
Ophichus/Milky Way in the middle and Scorpio on the right). The smudge at the left is the Comet McNaught C2009 R1.  At the bottom, the
squiggly red line takes you to Gary's 12 foot ladder and some of my other friends telescope setups.  Above the ladder is the light pollution dome
of Ft. Lupton's, some 70 miles distant.  And to the right on the horizon, is the red taillight of a vehicle on Hwy.14, three miles south.

Temp-  ~55*F
Wind- 0-3 mph
Humidity- Very low
Transparency- 7/10
Seeing- 6.5/10
Camera- Pentax MX SLR
Film- Kodak Gold ASA 400
Exposure time- 07 minutes
Platform- C-14 w/ Losmandy CG-11Tripod/mount ........

                           .  .Keota Niught Sky with Robert A, Gary G and the Moes

 There were also a couple of scratches either from the processing or camera, which I removed with Photoshop (yeah, I know that's cheating).
 The dotted streak is a high flying trans-continental jet and I had to do a 'black hat trick' to obscure it.  The yellow streak at bottom right is:
ATLAS CENTAUR 2, Fri Aug. 06,10 @22:39  00m20s 14 11 above SW  14 above SW. Friends have setup their telescopes in the foreground
and use only red lights, which are 'THE LAW' during a star party.

 To find out what the long bright yellow streak at the bottom was, considering time,location and magnitude, I ran a satellite scan   HERE:
and the best candidate  was: ATLAS CENTAUR 2  Fri Aug. 06,10@22:39  00m20s  14* max elevation at S, 11* above SW.

Candidates  from the generated list:
IRIDIUM 55 [+] Fri Aug 06,10@22:18  00m20s 11 10 above WSW  11 above WSW
SL-16 R/B Fri Aug 06,10@22:27  01m00s 13 10 above WSW  13 above WSW
SL-3 R/B Fri Aug 06,10@21:18  01m00s 14 10 above  SW  14 above SW
ATLAS CENTAUR 2 Fri Aug 06,10@22:39  00m20s 14 11 above  SW  14 above SW

Robert Arm's panorama image our Star Party at Keota
A Great image from my astro-friend Robert Arn (the North SUV) shows the  attendees, their setups and the storm that went over us and cleaned up
the air, just before twilight !!    ** MIne is the white van and C-14 to the south. Gary's is the RV on the left and Moes to the Right.

 SoapBox:  If there isn't a reversal in the trend of the encroaching Light Pollution,  we have no more than 10 more years before we run out of dark
sky space between Ft. Collins and Sterling. We are now at, Keota and it is 6 miles closer to Sterling than Ft. Collins.  Morn for the loss of the stars.

*************************** Keota's only Obstruction************************
                                                                                                               Photo Home___TjT  Feb. 07, 2011, editted May 8, 2022
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      .