A closeup of the Small Sagittarius Starcloud, aka Messier 24, at bottom, with the field extending north to include the nebulas M17, the Swan Nebula, and M16 at top, the Eagle Nebula. Between M17 and M24 is the small star cluster M18. Patches of red and blue nebulosity at bottom are IC 1283 and the blue reflection nebulas NGC 6589 and 6590. The prominent dark nebula at the right edge of the Starcloud is Barnard 92 with its lone star embedded in it, with smaller B93 above it. My framing was just a little too far west to properly include the M25 star cluster at lower left. This is a stack of 12 exposures, of 4- and 8-minutes with the William Optics RedCat 51mm astrograph at f/5 and the Canon EOS Ra at ISO 800. Aligned, stacked and mean combined in Photoshop. Taken on a perfect night from home on August 15, 2020 with this area just above my treetops. Autoguided with the ZWO ASIAir and ASI120MM guide camera with the RedCat on the Astro-Physics Mach1 mount. No filters employed here. I shot frames with and without Long Exposure Noise Reduction to test the difference on this warm summer night but saw little difference. But then again, thermal noise specks would be lost in the stars here! But LENR was not needed in this case.
The stars of the northern winter sky rising at dawn on the morning of August 14, 2020, from home in southern Alberta. The waning crescent Moon is overexposed here, shining above bright Venus , then in southern Gemini as a bright “morning star” in the east. Mars is also bright and reddish, to the south at upper right. Orion is rising over the ripening wheatfield at centre. Above Orion is Taurus with the Hyades and Pleiades star clusters. The bright star to the left and above the Moon is Capella in Auriga. Castor and Pollux are rising at far left. This is a stack of 4 images for the ground to smooth noise and 1 image for the sky, all with the 14mm Sigma Art lens at f/2.5 and Nikon D750 at ISO 800 for 25 seconds each. I added a mild Orton Glow effect with Luminar Flex.
Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) on July 27, 2020 from the Columbia Icefields (Jasper National Park, Alberta) from the Toe of the Glacier parking lot, looking north over Sunwapta Lake, formed by the summer meltwater of Athabasca Glacier. So this is a portrait of ice in the sky and icy water on Earth. This was my parting shot of the comet, as it was fading rapidly at this time receding from Earth, though it was still naked eye. Plus the waxing Moon was going to be lighting the sky much more in the following week. So this was the night! While it was pale to the eye, the long expposure of the camera did pick up the blue ion and white dust tails very well. The ion tail extends about 15° and the dust tail at least 10°. The tails are certainly more prominent than in 99% of any comets we see any given year! So this was still a nice comet! Red and green bands of airglow, some faint magenta aurora on the horizon, and some lingering blue perpetual twilight at his northern latitude all tint the sky. The Big Dipper stars are at top. Arcturus is at far left. The orange star at bottom is Tania Australis, here made a little larger by it shining through some thin haze. This is an exposure blend of a stack of 4 x 4-minute untracked exposures for the ground, with 4 x 2-minute tracked and stacked exposures for the sky. Stacking the images smooths noise. Tracking the sky prevents star trailing in the long exposures required to reveal the faintest stars and the subtle comet tails. The camera was on the iOptron SkyGuider Pro tracker. For the ground shots I simply turned the tracker motor off. All with the 24mm Sigma Art lens at f/2.8 and Canon EOS Ra at ISO 1600 for the ground and ISO 3200 for the sky. Topaz Sharpen AI applied to the ground; Topaz DeNoise AI applied to the sky. In camera LENR employed on all shots on this warm night. The foreground is lit in part by lights from the Icefields Centre buildings off camera to the right.
