Sous un ciel d'une pleine lune

Last night's full moon certainly didn't make for ideal stargazing conditions, but Orion and Sirius were at such lovely positions in the sky that I figured I may as well try and take some pictures. To look at these, I recommend clicking on the images, which will take you to their Flickr pages, and clicking on "All Sizes" to view them in larger resolutions so you can see what I'm talking about in their captions.


The moon as seen peeking through the highest branches of the hickory tree in our back yard:



This picture doesn't look like much, and it really isn't. Still, if you select one of the larger resolution versions on its Flickr page you can see that the image illustrates some dramatic color, especially in the contrast between the brilliant orange of Betelgeuse (Orion's left shoulder) and the cool blue of Bellatrix and Sirius (Bellatrix is Orion's right shoulder, and Sirius is the bright star in the trees at the far left of the picture):