Observing from the Peak

At high altitudes the night sky is transparent enough to see the Milky Way in a moonlit night. In this view the first quarter moon has illuminated the landscape but the Milky Way in the Summer Triangle is not faded away by the bright moon. The image is made from 3600-meter high Mount Gargash in Zagros Mountains of Iran. The mountain has exceptional seeing and atmospheric transparency for astronomical observations and it is selected for Iran National Observatory (a 3-meter class telescope to receive its first light in 2015).