A 360° and horizon-to-zenith panorama of the spring sky over the badlands at Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, May 25. 2016. I shot this just before moonrise of the waning gibbous Moon. Mars is the bright object right of centre, then near opposition and at its brightest. Jupiter is low at far right, setting with Leo into the west. Saturn is dimmer and just left of Mars with Mars and Saturn above Antares in Scorpius in the south. The summer Milky Way is rising across the east and into the southeast at left. The Andromeda Galaxy is just above the horizon at left of centre. The Summer Triangle stars are at centre. Arcturus is at upper right, with Spica and the stars of Corvus near the foreground hoodoo. The northern sky at left is brightened with twilight glow, despite this being taken at midnight. At this latitude of 51° north the sky never gets fully dark on late spring and early summer nights. One prominent satellite trail, interrupted by the gap between exposures of the frames it was in, is at left, plus the sky has many others! At this time of year they are well lit by the Sun even at midnight. The horizon is marked by light pollution glows from Calgary (far right) and Brooks (near centre). The display building for the Trail of the Fossil Hunters trail is at far left. This is a stitch of 44 panels, taken in 4 tiers of 11 segments each, shot with the motorized iOptron iPano mount, using its Circular mode. I used the 35mm Canon lens at f/2.8 for 30-second exposures with the Canon 6D at ISO 6400. Developed in Camera Raw, stitched with PTGui, and final processing with Photoshop CC 2015. The original is 32,500 by 8,300 pixels.
A 360° panorama of the Saskatchewan Summer Star Party, August 4, 2016, at the Meadows Campground in Cypress Hills Inter-Provincial Park, south of Maple Creek, Saskatchewan. The Park is a Dark Sky Preserve and is home to the annual star party that attracts about 300 people and telescopes each summer. A aurora is at left to the north while the Milky Way arches overhead from northeast to southwest, with the galactic centre in Sagittarius at right. Saturn and Mars are setting to the right of the Milky Way in Scorpius. The Big Dipper is at far left. Some faint bands of airglow are in the south at right. The Andromeda Galaxy is just left of centre. This is a 21-panel (3 tiers of 7 segments each) panorama shot with the iOptron iPano and stitched with PTGui. Each segment was 30 seconds at f/2.8 and ISO 6400.
