Kate and I got up at 3:26 a.m. — that’s what the clock said — to see if we could get an eyeful of the Quadrantid meteor shower last night. (Why so late/early? It was after moonset here, and meteor visibility would be better.) We each saw one pretty good streak before crawling back into bed. Of course, I stayed out for half an hour hoping to get one on camera–and in fact the one I saw flashed by while the lens was open, but it was outside the frame. In any case I got a couple of OK star shots, including this one of the Big Dipper, which was virtually overhead; Polaris, the North Star, is just above and to the right of the tree on the left.
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John — yeah, Mars was clearly visible (and very copper-colored) that morning, but that was in the more brightly lit southern sky and I didn’t shoot in that direction. I think you’ve got all the star names right. “Cor Caroli” is the alpha star in a constellation I’ve never heard of before, Canum Venaticorum, and Cor Caroli was named as a tribute to the executed Charles I: http://domeofthesky.com/clicks/corcaroli.html