From the dark skies of Bolton Landing, NY, we see a wide angle view of the Summer Triange stretching across the zenith.  The Milky Way runs through Cygnus and its lucida, Deneb, then broadens as it bisects Vega and Altair heading toward the constellations of Ophiuchus and Serpens.  Vega is the fifth brightest star in the night sky at an average magnitude of +0.03, Altair is the twelfth brightest at magnitude +0.76, and Deneb is the nineteenth at magnitude +1.25 (again, an average because it is slightly variable).  In terms of absolute magnitude, however, Deneb is staggeringly brighter than either Vega or Altair, since it is estimated to be on the order of 100 times farther away than either of the other two.  In the area inscribed by the triangle, we see the brightest star cloud in the northern Milky Way, the Cygnus Star Cloud.  The stars Altair and Vega are the subject of a beautiful Chinese legend that depicts the Milky Way as the celestial river separating the two.  Unannotated image.