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Looking south-southwest to my favorite North Dakota geologic formation, Heart Butte, I used a wide-angle lens (shot directly at the horizon to avoid a "curved earth"), at 5:40 a.m., Monday morning (November 20th). The way the thin clouds are rolling through, slightly blurring the stars, and the colors in the sky, remind me of Vincent Van Gogh's work. The constellation Orion is right above the butte, the Pleiades star cluster is in the far upper right. The brightest star in the northern sky, Sirius, which is actually a star cluster, or binary system with a visual magnitude of -1.46 (our sun is -26.73 and the moon is -12.6), is that bright point below and to the left of Orion. Above and a little further to the left of Orion is the bright star Arcturus, -0.05 visual magnitude. Arcturus is easy to find; simply follow the "arc" of the handle on the Big Dipper outward... the bright star you'll come to is Arcturus. All I did to the shot was lighten it a little, otherwise this is what it looked like out there... the jet flying west, far to the south, was a bonus (nope, November 20 is far too early for Santa... unless, of course, one of his elves took the sleigh out for a joy ride?). Shot a half-hour after my Lake Tschida night photos, it was chilly out there but not real cold, around 25 degrees with the windchill. 5 minute exposure, 1600 iso, f-4, manual infinity focus, Sigma 10-20mm wide-angle lens on a 24mp Canon EOS Rebel T7i. ======= [I just placed an order for a Rokinon 16mm f2.0 lens. That's a wide aperture and should net me even better night sky and Milky Way photos. You'll start seeing them in January.] 11.30-12