From latitude 27° north in southern Texas, we observed the great southern star Achernar, unfortunately amidst more light pollution that we anticipated.  Even though it was very dark at my location, lights from the increasingly crowded southern Rio Grande valley brightened the sky along the southern horizon tremendously.  Nevertheless, we can see Achernar easily above the horizon as well as the star α Indi to its lower left.  Achernar is the ninth brightest star in the night sky, at magnitude +0.46, somewhat dimmer than Procyon but slightly brighter than Betelgeuse in Orion.  Unannotated image.