Atlantic Dark Skies

Taking a vacation to the state of Florida in early February provided some beautiful night skies. The above image looks east out over the Atlantic Ocean from the third floor of the Holiday Inn Express in Daytona Beach Florida at 10:17 pm EST on Tuesday, February 5, 2019. The photograph was set up by attaching the camera's flexible Joby Gorilla Pod tripod to our balcony's railing. It is a 15 second exposure at f/2.8, 640 ISO and 11mm focal length.

Early the next morning from the same location. Image looks southeast at 6:24 am EST. At left center background is the 0.75 magnitude star Altair in the constellation Aquila. At right from lower left-to-upper right: 0.57 magnitude planet Saturn, -4.22 magnitude planet Venus, -1.90 magnitude planet Jupiter. Image is a 1.3-second exposure at f/3.2, 320 ISO and 13mm focal length. Sunrise was at 7:14 am this morning.

6:26 am EST, Friday, February 8, 2019. Looking southeast from the beach near the Amelia Island pier. Camera mounted Joby Gorilla Pod tripod placed in the sand. Image is a 2.5-second exposure at
f/3.5, ISO 640 and 18mm focal length. From lower left-to-upper right: 0.58 magnitude planet Saturn, -4.20 magnitude planet Venus, -1.91 magnitude planet Jupiter, 1.03 magnitude star Antares in the constellation Scorpius.

6:32 am. Image is a 2.5 second exposure at f/4, ISO 200 and 18mm focal length.

6:35 am. 2.5 second exposure, f/6.3, ISO 160, 18mm focal length. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.