In going back through archives on an old computer, I found a cache of 35mm color-film images I'd made at the inaugural Eldorado Star Party in west Texas.

This was made with a Zenitar 16mm F2.8 fisheye lens affixed to a Pentax MX 35mm film SLR, which was piggybacked on a 6" Celestron refractor driven (unguided) by a CI-700 equatorial mount. I think the exposure was about 1 minute and the film was Fujicolor at about ISO 800.

Notice the dust lanes in the Milky Way show up nicely. The skyglow along the horizon was caused by reflections from dust in the air, as it had been very windy near sunset. The local time was about an hour past sunset.

"Down" in the photo is to the lower left corner.

Due to distortion of the stars by the extremely short focal-length of the lens, this is best viewed Medium rather than Large or Original.

This was taken October 23, 2003. It's my seventh photo to reach 800 views , fifth to reach 900, fourth to reach 1,000, third to reach 1,250 views, and second to reach 3,000 views on Flickr! Also, my first to reach 20 and 30 Favorites (thanks!).