The Summer Milky Way

It was a really clear night last night, so I drove for an hour and a half out to Southold, to Custer Institute with my telescope to do do some observing. Our skies are badly light-polluted these days almost everywhere, and the joy of being so far out on the island is that it is dark enough to see the Milky Way. It doesn't get "astronomically dark" until 10:30 at night, believe it or not, so I didn't start observing until then, and stayed until 2 AM! Another hour and a half drive back home, and in bed by 4 AM. Yikes! But it was a spectacular night of observing, and at about midnight I could see the summer Milky Way rising in the east. The Milky Way is full of wonderful astronomical objects - star clusters, nebulae and galaxies, to observe, so it is always a thrill to realize that we are moving into the summer observing season. This is not a good image in terms of quality - it has a lot of "noise" in it. That's because it is a relatively inexpensive SLR - it is my SONY alpha 200k. If I had my Nikon D-300 with me, it would have been a much better image, and would not seem nearly as "grainy."