Saggittarius and Lightning Bolt

This picture was taken 9/22/6 at about 8:00 PM Central time looking a little West of directly South from my dark sky site near Fordland, MO. The storms were actually over Northern Arkansas. These are the tops of the storm clouds illuminated by lightning from many miles away. If you look closely you can see the teapot asterism in Saggittarius just above the top of the clouds and slightly left of the center of the frame. Some of the stars of Scorpius are also visible near the right side of the frame. The small lighted area near the center of the very bottom edge of the frame is a reflection of the lightning on the surface of a pond. Although this is not what most people think of as "Astrophotography" it does have some astronomical objects in it and shows what can be done with very minimal equipment (a camera on a tripod and remote shutter release) and shows how foreground objects (trees, storm clouds, etc) can make wide field shots of the night sky and constellations more interesting. Also it is fairly unusual to see both stars and storm clouds in the sky at the same time. Usually cloudy or stormy weather stops me from setting up my astro photo gear. In fact, in this case I was actually trying to get some lightning bolt pictures and only noticed the stars in the shot after I downloaded it from the camera and looked at it on the computer screen although I could see stars while I was outside shooting these pictures.

Details:

Imaged on 9/22/2006 at 8:00 PM Central Time from Fordland, MO

Equipment:

Camera: Canon 300D (unmodified) on Bogen tripod
18-55mm lens at 18mm

Image Information:

1 Frame, 6 seconds @ ISO 800 in JPEG mode
No calibration frames or image enhancement/processing