Help Identifying Key Stars and Constellations

[Boatman]

I am trying to identify the key stars and constellations in a photograph I took August 6th, 2016 at about 5:00 local time. The photos were taken looking east-north-east, the sunrise azimith was 65 degrees on this day. I've studied a number of sky charts trying to figure this out, but not being an even poor astronimer, I'm not having any luck.

More information is available in this blog post I put up; https://www.anythingbutawedding.com/...nnel-view-dawn

The two photos of the sky were taken within minutes of each other, one is just wider than the other. I think I see the Pleadies at the top of the wide angle image and possibly Orion's belt at the bottom of the same image. The photos are posted on OneDrive, not attached as I had problems attaching them and the size would be too small to be able to clearly see the stars.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AiR9KzpBmPls4ElN...4g8Zj?e=DJeH3r

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AiR9KzpBmPls4EiQ...gzzGH?e=yUCa6G

Any information would be appreciated.

[Tringa]

I can't help with the second shot, Homer but you are correct about the first. Orion's belt is aligned vertically at the bottom right and the Pleadies are at the top.

A very useful, and free to download, programme is Stellarium ( http://stellarium.org/ ). It can be set for any latitude and longitude and for just about any day past or present. There are too many other controls in to too go into here(eg adding constellation boundaries and names) but it is very handy to identify stars, planets and other sky objects.

Dave

[Shropshire Lad]

Hi Homer

This is what I usually see in the winter months here in the UK. You also have Auriga the charioteer towards the middle / right hand side and the bright reddish star towards the top right of the image is Aldebaran in Taurus surrounded by the star cluster of the Hyades.

Hope this helps a bit

Luke

[Boatman]

Thanks, guys. I'll look into stellarium. The reason this looks like a winter sky is that this was very early, just before dawn. When one goes out to look at the stars in the winter, it's normally in the evening or early night. If you looked at the summer, early night sky, all the constellations visible in my photo would have set.

I did do some more digging after posting this and I am quite sure the quiver of Orion is visible in my final print, including Betelguise and Meissa, and I think Caster and Polus are there, too, though I'm not certain which two stars.

[Boatman]

Wow! Sollarium is just the tool I needed. I had a bit of trouble with it initially, you have to turn off pointer trails for your mouse to work properly. Once past that I was able to set up the sky just as it was on the morning of August 6, 2016 and identify all the key stars. I was correct about seeing part of Orion, but wrong about Castor and Pollux. Casor and Pollux were still below the horizon of El Capitan on the left. The two bright stars in the center of the final image are Propus and Tejat - not part of an zodiac constellation. None of this matters very much, but at least I have an intelligent answer if someone asks what stars are visible in the image. Thanks for your help.

Note to self: If I'd composed this image slghtly more to the right or just a tad wider, I would have included all of Orion, which would have made a more interesting sky.

[rudi]

I got the following out off plate solver in Pixinsight:





or a bit more detailed:



HTH, Rudi

[Wandjina]

I am not "into" astrophotography but I have to say that I am blown away by what I have just read about both stellarium and Pixinsight. What great programs!