The large star-forming region of IC 1396 in Cepheus, taken September 5, 2018 from home in southern Alberta. The wide field includes the bright orange star Mu Cephei, or Herschel’s Garnet Star, at top. The Elephant Trunk Nebula is at centre. North is at top. This is a stack of 7 exposures: 5 x 6 minutes at ISO 1600 with an LPS light pollution reduction filter and 2 x 5 minutes at ISO 1600 without the LPS filter, all with the 77mm f/4 Borg Astrograph and filter-modified Canon 5D MkII. I refocused between unfiltered and filtered shots, and registered the images in Photoshop. The filtered shots record the red nebulosity with more intensity. The unfiltered shots provide a more natural color to the stars and background sky. So this is a composite that blends the best of both worlds. Diffraction spikes added with Astronomy Tools actions.
The large star-forming region of IC 1396 in Cepheus, taken September 4, 2018 from home in southern Alberta. The wide field includes the bright orange star Mu Cephei, or Herschel’s Garnet Star, at upper left. The Elephant Trunk Nebula is just right of centre. North is at top. This is a stack of 9 exposures: 5 x 4 minutes at ISO 1600 and 4 x 8 minutes at ISO 800, all with the 77mm f/4 Borg Astrograph and filter-modified Canon 5D MkII, an old but very excellent camera! With the 300mm focal length and full frame camera the field is about 7° by 4°. Star diffraction spikes added with AstronomyTools actions. StarShrink filter also applied. Focused with Bahtinov mask. Autoguided with SG4.
A Park interpreter poses for a scene in Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan, of stargazing with binoculars under the Milky Way on a dark moonless night. Grasslands is perfect for stargazing as it is a Dark Sky Preserve and the horizon is vast and unobstructed. Mars is bright to the left and the galactic centre is to the south at right. The view is overlooking the Frenchman River Valley. This is a stack of 4 exposures for the ground and one untracked exposure for the sky, all 30 seconds at f/2.8 with the 20mm Sigma lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400. LENR was on.
