Winter Hexagon over Manla Reservoir

A beam of car light broke the silence of Manla reservoir. The Winter Hexagon is rising in this dark starry night. It is a celestial asterism with vertices at bright stars Rigel, Aldebaran, Capella, Pollux/Castor, Procyon, and Sirius. Here, the band of our Milky Way galaxy runs through the center of the Winter Hexagon, while the Pleiades star cluster and California Nebula are visible just above it. The Manla Reservoir looks like an emerald embedding in the grand mountain. Beyond being a tourist attraction, it also has the functions of irrigation, generation, water storage and flood control. Move the slider on the image for the labels. © Jeff Dai