Currently Mars is shining brightly in one of the most intriguing parts of the Milky Way. The picture shows Mars (the orange dot in the left hand corner) along with the Lagoon Nebula ( red cloud below Mars), the Trifid Nebula (small red-blue dot to the right of the Lagoon Nebula), the Omega Nebula (red dot to the far right) and the Eagle Nebula (in the lower right corner).  Also visible are a number of star clusters, the most prominent of which is the globular cluster M22 (the bright white dot at the upper edge of the image).

Tonight I caught the waxing moon, 6 days after  new moon, with 14% of the disk illuminated. This shot was taken through a telescope with at a focal length of 1600 mm.

I was taking images of the zodiacal light or false dusk (a triangle of light that is visible in the West just after sunset during springtime in the Southern Hemisphere), when a bright meteor illuminated the scene, only missing Saturn by a hair.  

Scorpius and the planets Mars (brightest dot in the upper left hand corner) and Saturn (bright white dot almost straight below Mars) one day after full moon. The image was taken with a special diffuser filter to highlight the colors of the stars and planets.

Finally El Niño gave us a break and we had a spectacular clear night, which I used for some wide-field images of the Milky Way. The bright red dot above the Milky Way is the planet Mars, the fainter red dot below it is Antares (the main star of the constellation Scorpius), and the brighter dot to the left of Antares is the planet Saturn. The images were taken with my camera sitting “piggyback” on a  telescope with motorized tracking.

The Polloquere hot springs are located at 4318 meters in the Salar de Surire in northern Chile (Parinacota region). This is a very remote area that can only be reached by offroad vehicles on rather precarious roads (don’t forget to bring extra gas and lots of water). The thermal water is moderately to very hot, and thus perfect to warm up in cold temperatures. During our stay at the hot springs we had a full moon. Although this is not ideal for astro photography, it nevertheless illuminated the landscape nicely and gave the sky an appealing blue tint. Rise of the full moon.   The two brightest stars of the nightsky, Sirius (right) and Canopus (left) are setting.   The Big Dipper, but on its head.   Great campsite with lots of parking available.   Frozen windows in the morning.   Moon setting.   Sun rising.   The moon is setting behing the ridge on the right, while the first rays of the sun illuminate the mountain on the left.   Lovely morning scenery.