2012 Galactic Center Photos

I am happy to say that I managed to get two wonderful photographs of the Galactic Center a couple of mornings ago, here in the Florida Keys. The weather for this year’s Winter Star Party has not been easy. Many nights, the skies are clouded over. However, on two nights, which also happened to be bitterly cold and windy, we had clear skies right to the horizon! Usually, the night sky over the horizon is hazy because of the surrounding water.
Fantastic! Especially since the Galactic Center rises out of the ocean on the southeast horizon at about 5:00 a.m. Unfortunatley, a sliver of the old moon was rising just behind the Galactic Center. Nevertheless, with my trusty Nikon set to take 30 second exposures, I did get both a horizontal and vertical image that, with Nikon’s Capture NX2 software, I was able to resolve a great photograph of the star constellations of Sagittarius and Scorpio surrouding the Galactic Center. Many people believe that the line up of the earth and sun with the Galactic Center herald a new world on December 21, 2012.