Cornish Heavens

The Milky Way above Wheal Prosper engine house on the south coast of Cornwall. This photograph was taken in October and the Milky Way season in the Northern Hemisphere is coming to an end. This is a merge of the foreground photo taken at dusk and the night sky a few hours later. The Astrotracer built in to my Pentax K1 camera allowed for a single 3 minute exposure of the night sky at ISO 800. There is quite a bit of light pollution at this site and the lights of ships can be seen streaked on the horizon. Saturn is low in the sky just to the right of the engine house and Altair is in the upper part of the photo to the left of the Milky Way. Altair is one of the closest stars visible to the naked eye (16.7 light years away).