Arches NP Stargazing

Spent a few days at Arches NP a few weeks ago and went stargazing one night. I set up at the South Window Arch with the northern end of the Milky Way and also Turret Arch with the southern end of the Milky Way. Unfortunately skies had been hazy all day with smoke from the western wildfires -- would love to see it with truly clear skies. Also the lights from Moab were bright to the south (bottom left of 2nd image).

Shooting the South Window (first image) caught a number of satellites through the shoot and I believe Andromeda in the upper right?

These are fantastic. Love that galaxy!

Nice to see some wide-field milky way shots that aren't over-cooked.
Beautiful images.
You caught a lot more than you might realize in those two images.
In the top one, you also can just barely make out M33, the Triangulum galaxy as a faint "smudge" just on the right edge of the frame just above the middle point.
Also, the cluster just right of center in your top image is the famous Double Cluster of Perseus. NGC 869 and NGC 884

In your bottom image, you have Jupiter, the brightest object, and Saturn, the other bright "star-like" object above and to the left of Jupiter.

Great images. Arches is one of my favorite parks at anytime of day. You did a wonderful job of capturing the park after dark. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for the comments. I knew in the first image that I had Cassiopeia although it somewhat gets lost and not as prominent as to the eye, but I did not know about Perseus or Triangulum. And yes, Jupiter and Saturn were brilliant as was Mars to the East — I believe just off frame to the right on the first image.

I need to shoot stars more and study up a bit.

Great pics.

Really nice shots, I can’t wait to visit Arches myself. Looking at the top photo I think it was an airplane that photo bombed you, could be a coincidence looks like evenly spaced strobe lights along the track. Love that you got andromeda and other ds objects!