Badlands Dark Skies Leftovers

Capturing early morning skies from the Badlands Door Trail in South Dakota on Monday, September 18, 2017 also included these two miscellaneous images. There were so many stars in this dark location that it was somewhat difficult to identify the constellation Orion. Conversely, in the light polluted skies of eastern Iowa, Orion is very obvious. The image above looks southeast at 4:15 am MDT. Just to the right of the Milky Way at center is Orion, with the -1.47 magnitude star Sirius seen just above and left of the horizon glow. Image is a 20 second exposure at f/2.8, 5000 ISO and 11mm focal length.

Looking east at 5:26 am from the same location. Just above the horizon glow at center is the -3.94 magnitude planet Venus, rising ahead of an eventual conjunction that included the star Regulus, crescent moon, and planets Mars & Mercury respectively. Also visible above and right of Venus is the Beehive Cluster (M44). Identical settings to the top image, with the exception of an ISO of 2000. Nikon D7200 DSLR, Tokina Lens.