The Colours of the Cygnus Milky Way

This is a wide shot encompassing most of the constellation of Cygnus the Swan in the northern summer sky, showing the variety of colours in the starclouds and nebulas that populate this section of the Milky Way. The colours are brought out by the long exposure used and by contrast enhancements in processing. But yes, they are real! This is not false colour. The red and pink emission nebulas of the North America Nebula (NGC 7000), at left, and the Butterfly Nebula (IC 1318), at centre, dominate. The small red patch at right in the Tulip Nebula, Sh2-101. But the starclouds themselves go from being bluish at left, to more neutral at centre where the main Cygnus Starcloud shines brightest, to yellowish at right in southern Cygnus and northern Aquila, where obscuring dust tints the starlight a warm tone. Other nebulas in this view include the tiny (at this scale) and purple Cocoon Nebula (IC 5146) at far lower left at the end of the B168 dark lane, and the magenta arcs of the Veil Nebula complex (NGC 6992-5 and NGC 6960) at bottom centre. Numerous large star clusters show up, notably NGC 6940 and smaller NGC 6885 to the right of the Veil. NGC 6811 (centre top) and NGC 6819 (to the right) are at top. The yellowish dust-obscured clusters at centre may be Bica 1 and 2. The field is laced with dark nebulas, as this is the area where the Great Rift begins in the Milky Way, formed from dust lanes that split the visible Milky Way.. The most prominent dark nebula is the Funnel Cloud Nebula, aka Le Gentil 3, at left, and the Northern Coal Sack beside and framing the North America Nebula. Deneb is left of centre; at centre is Gamma Cygni, aka Sadr. Albireo is at far right, above centre. This is a stack of 22 x 2-minute exposures with the Canon RF 28-70mm lens at 50mm and f/2.8 on the Canon EOS Ra at ISO 3200, and on the Star Adventurer Mini tracker. I shot 24 frames and only 2 were slightly trailed and were not used. The lens had a URTH Night filter on it to reduce light pollution and airglow discolouration. Taken from home October 1, 2021 on a night with some loss of transparency due to haze. Nebulosity was brought out with the aid of luminosity and colour range masks created with Lumenzia. All stacking, alignment and blending in Photoshop.

The Milky Way over Upper Waterton Lake

The summer Milky Way and galactic core region over Upper Waterton Lake and Waterton Townsite on a July evening. This was from the famous viewpoint of the Prince of Wales Hotel, looking south with Sagittarius and the Galactic Centre positioned over the lake. Scorpius is at right with reddish Antares. The M6 and M7 star clusters are low over the lake. The pinkish Lagoon Nebula, M8, is left of centre, with the M24 Small Sagittarius Starcloud above. Some forest fire smoke dampened the contrast and transparency this night. This is a blend of tracked exposures for the sky and untracked exposures for the ground: a stack of 4 x 2-minute tracked at ISO 1600 and f/2.8 for the sky and a stack of 3 x 4-minute untracked at ISO 800 and f/4 for the ground. LENR noise reduction applied in-camera to the ground images to reduce thermal speckling on this warm night. An additional short 30-second exposure at ISO 400 and f/5.6 masked in is for the town lights to subdue their brightness, though the result does better resemble the naked eye view, as the lighting has been reduced and shielded recently to make it much less glaring than before. An additional 2-minute tracked exposure at the end of the sequence taken through a Kase/Alyn Wallace Starglow filter blended in add the star glows! The tracker was the Star Adventurer Mini which worked perfectly and consistently. The camera was the Canon EOS Ra with the 15-35mm RF lens at 24mm.

Noctilucent Clouds at Dusk with 85mm Lens (June 16, 2021)

A 45° panorama of the massive "grand display" of noctilucent clouds at dusk on June 16, 2021 from "One Tree Hill" near home in southern Alberta. This display was bright and extensive at dusk on June 16, and re-appeared over much of the northeastern sky at dawn on June 17. Note the colours — with the NLCs having a reddish tinge at the top where sunlight is reddened as the Sun sets from that altitude and location of the clouds. The lower areas of NLCs often appear green as well. But the main colour of NLCs is electric blue, very much so this night when they were so bright. The sharp dark edge in the clouds at left is real; it is not a stitching artifact. Capella is the brightest star to the right of the lone tree. This is a panorama of 6 segments with the 85mm Samyang lens and Canon R6, stitched with Adobe Camera Raw.

Arc of Noctilucent Clouds (June 16, 2021)

A 90° panorama of the massive "grand display" of noctilucent clouds at dusk on June 16, 2021 from "One Tree Hill" near home in southern Alberta. This display was bright and extensive at dusk on June 16, and re-appeared over much of the northeastern sky at dawn on June 17. This shows the arc of the NLCs, defined at the top by the edge where sunlight is no longer illuminating the clouds, an edge that drops in altitude as the Sun itself drops farther below the horizon. Capella is at centre, Leo and Regulus at far left, and Perseus at right of centre. The main colour of NLCs is electric blue, very much so this night when they were so bright. This is a panorama of 10 segments with the 50mm Sigma lens and Canon R6, stitched with Adobe Camera Raw.

The Veil Nebula Complex in Cygnus

This is the supernova remnant in Cygnus known as the Veil Nebula, here in its entirety, from the eastern arc at left, catalogued as NGC 6992/5, to the western arc at right, NGC 6960, running past the star 52 Cygni. At top is the wedge-shaped "Pickering's Triangle.," but discovered photographically by Wiliamina Fleming, one of the Harvard "computers." The field is filled with lots of little nebula bits and shrapnel-like fragments. All are remains of a star that exploded as a supernova some 10,000 to 20,000 years ago and is about 2,400 light years away. The red is emission from ionized hydrogen, the cyan emission from ionized oxygen. This nebula shows a lot of oxygen emission at the leading edge of the expanding cloud of debris. This is a blend of three stacks of exposures: -- 10 x 8 minutes at ISO 3200 through an Optolong L-eXtreme very narrowband filter which lets through just green-blue oxygen III and red hydrogen alpha wavelengths -- 8 x 8 minutes at ISO 1600 through an Optolong L-eNhance narrowband filter which lets through a broader bandwidth of light at those two main wavelenths, OIII and Ha -- 8 x 6 minutes at ISO 800 through no filter which records the full spectrum of light All were with the Canon EOS Ra through the SharpStar 94mm apo refractor at f/4.4 with its reducer/flattener and using an AstroHutech filter drawer between the flattener and camera to aid filter swapping. The L-eNhance set was taken June 11 until clouds intervened; the other 2 sets were taken the next night June 12. There was only about 2 hours of semi-darkness at this time of year from my latitude of 51° N. Guiding was with the MGEN3 stand-alone auto-guider (which applied a 5-pixel dither or image shift between each exposure) and William Optics 30mm guidescope. So impressive results less than 2 weeks from solstice at my latitude, made possible by the filters. With the dithering, no LENR or darks were applied, despite this being a warm-ish night. The L-eXtreme set contributes the cyan component; the L-eNhance set contributes the red component best; the clear base layer contributes more normally coloured stars, as the filters tend to discolour the stars and add haloes. All stacking, aligning, blending and masking were with Photoshop, with luminosity masks created with Lumenzia for selected adjustments to regions of different brightnesses. A high pass sharpen also added to the bright areas with another luminosity mask.

Milky Way over Icy Cameron Lake

The Milky Way, with the starclouds of the galactic core in Sagittarius at left and the head of Scorpius at right, over a still ice-covered Cameron Lake, a high altitude alpine lake in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada. This was on a very clear night on June 2, 2021. The Lagoon Nebula, M8, and M24 Small Sagittarius Starcloud are prominent at left. Antares and the Rho Ophiuchi dark lanes are at right just over the mountain ridge, with the tracked shots timed to catch Antares before it set behind the peak. The Galactic "Dark Horse" is at centre, with this area of sky about as high as it would get for the night — this is right on the Canada-US border at 49° N. The landscape is lit only by starlight and residual airglow. Cameron Lake is in the extreme southwest corner of Alberta and is certainly one of the darkest places in Canada. Waterton Lakes is a Dark Sky Preserve. The slope at left is scarred from the 2017 Kenow Fire. This is a blend of tracked and untracked exposures: a stack of 2 x 8-minute untracked shots at ISO 400 for the ground, and a stack of 4 x 2-minute tracked shots at ISO 1600 for the sky. All were with the 35mm Canon L-series EF lens at f/2.8 and Canon Ra camera. The tracker was the little MSM Move-Shoot-Move Rotator, polar aligned with the laser. The ground shots were taken immediately after the tracked sky shots. Stacked, masked and blended in Photoshop.

Scorpius over Mount Custer

A "deepscape" image of the head of Scorpius with the colourful Rho Ophiuchi nebula complex culminating over the icy peak of Mount Custer in Montana, as taken from the north shore of Cameron Lake in Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, Canada. Antares is the yellow star, with the globular cluster Messier 4 just to the right. The mountain is lit only by starlight. This is from latitude 49° N so this area of sky is low in the south and just clears this mountain even with Scorpius at its highest, which it was here. This is a blend of tracked and untracked exposures: 4 x 1-minute tracked at ISO 3200 for the sky plus a single 4-minute untracked exposure at ISO 800 for the ground, all with the Samyang 85mm AF lens at f/2.8 on the Canon Ra camera, and on the Move-Shoot-Move MSM tracker, polar aligned with the laser. Out of the 8 tracked shots I took for the set, half were unacceptably trailed. Taken on a very clear night June 2, 2021 with the tracked shots taken after the untracked image. That's a mistake with the MSM as it can take 2 or 3 minutes for the gears to re-engage and start tracking, wasting those shots and valuable time.

Red Moon over the Rose Colored Rockies

The total lunar eclipse of May 26, 2021, here in the late partial phase about 15 minutes before totality began, with a thin arc of the Full Moon at the top of the disk still in sunlight. The rest is in the red umbral shadow of the Earth. The same pinkish-red light is beginning to light the distant Rocky Mountains in the dawn twilight. A few stars of Scorpius are visible. From my location the Moon disappeared into the brightening twilight sky as totality began — the fully eclipsed Moon was too faint to see, as this was a dark eclipse despite the short 15 minutes of totality, surprising, as I was expecting to be able to capture the fully eclipsed Moon in the morning sky. But not so. It was gone from view not longer after this, despite still being up and in clear sky. I shot this from a location just south of Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, chosen to be under clear skies at eclipse time, which proved to be the case. So despite this being a lunar eclipse widely seen over half the world, a chase was still required to see it! In this case, I drove to a site farther north and into a brighter sky at eclipse time, but with much better weather prospects than sites in Alberta to the south where the sky would have been a bit darker and closer to the mountains. But I was happy to get it! This is a single 1.3-second exposure with the 200mm Canon L lens at f/8 and the red-sensitive (helping with the sunrise colours) Canon Ra at ISO 400, untracked on a tripod. I did blend in a short 1/6-second exposure for just the bright part of the Moon to tone down its brightness, using a Lights-Mid1 mask in Lumenzia.

Earth and Sky at Dinosaur Park

This is a 160°-wide panorama of the Milky Way arching over the late Cretaceous Badlands formations at Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, taken on a moonlit night in May, juxtaposing the dramatic earth tones with the bluish sky above. The waxing crescent Moon is low and off frame at left and is providing the warm illumination. Capella is the bright star at far left. The Summer Triangle stars are right of centre, with bright Vega at top. Cassiopeia and Perseus are at left; Cygnus is at centre. Haze in the sky adds the natural star glows but also mutes the contrast in the Milky Way and adds the horizon glows. However, a weak aurora adds a green and magenta glow to the northern horizon at centre. This is a blend of a 6-segment panorama framed for the sky, with a matching 6-segment panorama framed for the ground, layered, masked and blended in Photoshop. Segments were spaced 30° apart with the camera in landscape orientation. The sky segments are untracked, each 20 seconds at f/2.8 with the Sigma 24mm Art lens. The ground segments are each 30 seconds also at f/2.8. All were with the Canon R6 at ISO 3200. I should have used 1 to 2 minutes each for the ground panorama, shot at a lower ISO, but it was late! Stitching was with Adobe Camera Raw. I applied a Dynamic Contrast filter to the ground using ON1 Effects, and a mild Orton glow effect using Luminar AI. Shot May 16, 2021.

Panorama of the Milky Rising at Dinosaur Park

The northern summer Milky Way rising on a spring night at Dinosaur Provincal Park, Alberta. This is a 180° panorama from northwest, at left, where the waxing crescent Moon is setting, over to southeast, at right, where Scorpius and the galactic centre is rising. The Summer Triangle stars are at centre; Cassiopeia is left of centre; Auriga and Gemini are setting at far left amid the glow of the setting Moon. The sky was hazy, adding the natural star glows, horizon clouds and tints. No light pollution or starglow filter was employed. This was May 15/16, 2021 about 1 am. This is a blend of tracked exposures for the sky and untracked exposures for the ground. The sky is a stitch of 9 segments at 30° spacings, each 1 minute at ISO 1600 with the original Canon 24mm L lens at f/2. The camera was in portrait orientation. The ground is a stitch of 18 segments at 15° spacings and taken after the sky segments with the tracker motor off, each ground segment 2 minutes at ISO 3200 with the lens at f/4 for more depth of field. Both passes were single row panoramas, with the camera unchanged in altitude. All with the Canon EOS Ra camera on the Move-Shoot-Move (MSM) rotator/tracker with the Alyn Wallace Z Plate to allow the camera to pan horizontally on the level, despite the tracker being tipped over polar aligned. All stitching was with Adobe Camera Raw, to create two panoramas, which were then layered, masked (using Select Sky) and blended in Photoshop. A mild Orton glow effect added with Luminar AI. I have left some satellites in.

The Nebulas of Orion

This is composition taking in many of the bright and not so bright nebulas in and around the Sword and Belt of Orion. At bottom is the bright Orion Nebula, Messier 42. Above it is the bluish Running Man Nebula, NGC 1973-5-7. At centre is the famous dark Horsehead Nebula, B33, silhouetted against the bright glow of IC 434. Above it, and above the blue star Alnitak is the pinkish Flame Nebula, NGC 2024. At top left is the reflection nebula complex of Messier 78 and NGC 2071. Numerous other small patches of nebulosity shine around the Belt stars at right of centre. The large Barnard's Loop, Sh-2-276, just sneaks into the corner of the frame at top left. This is a blend of filtered and unfiltered images: a stack of 8 x 8-minute exposures through an Optolong L-Enhance filter blended with a stack of 12 x 8-minute exposures without a filter, with the filtered shots at ISO 3200 and unfiltered shots at ISO 800. Stacks of 4 x 2-minute at ISO 800 and 4 x 2-minute at ISO 200 are also blended in with luminosity masks to retain the details in the bright core of the Orion Nebula, and to shrink the stars. All were with the Canon EOS Ra mirrorless camera shooting through the William Optics RedCat 51mm astrograph at f/5 (250mm focal length). The unfiltered shots were taken the night after the filtered shots, as incoming haze and ice fog cut short the shoot on the first night, January 9, 2021, and prevented more filtered shots (for lower noise) without haze. As it is, some haze surrounds the stars. The RedCat is equipped with the Starizona filter drawer accessory to make it easier to swap the filter in and out without affecting camera position. This was on the Astro-Physics Mach1 mount and guided with the made-in-Hungary Lacerta MGEN3 autoguider which also controlled the camera and applied a dithering motion between each shot to help remove thermal noise. No dark frames were taken nor was Long Exposure Noise Reduction applied in camera, though it was -5° C these nights, chilly but mild for January here in Alberta. All stacking, aligning and mean or median combining (the latter to eliminate some geosat trails) was done in Photoshop 2021. Luminosity masks to enhance the faint nebulosity and apply star masks where needed were created with the Lumenzia extension panel. The masking helps compress the dynamic range, allowing the faintest nebulosity to be enhanced without blowing out the bright highlights like the core of M42. But inevitably, the Orion Nebula ends up looking dimmer than it really is in relation to the other nebulas in the field.

The Rising of the Cold Winter Moon

A composite image of the rising of the December 29, 2020 "Cold" Full Moon into a very clear evening twilight sky, here over the Badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta. The Moon rose with the Sun still up and lighting the landscape in warm tones, contrasting with the cool blues of the snowy landscape and sky. The pink Belt of Venus glow lights the lower sky near the horizon. It is not often we get a Full Moon (it was only 4 hours before being officially Full this night) rising with the Sun still up and illuminating the landscape. This is a layered blend of 13 exposures taken at 5-minute intervals, from moonrise just before sunset, to the Moon high in a dark sky more than an hour later. The ground and sky near the horizon is a blend of the first four exposures while the upper sky is from the last two exposures to place the now bright Moon into a darker sky as it actually appeared. The Moon moves its own diameter in about 2 minutes, so picking shots taken 5 minutes apart provides a good spacing for a shot with this field of view. Shots with longer telephoto lenses would be better with Moons taken every 3 to 4 minutes. These frames were taken as past of an 800-frame time lapse with the camera on auto exposure to ensure each frame was well exposed for the ground and sky. But as the Moon brightens as it rises that inevitably overexposes the Moon's disk — the exposure sequence I used here works for the time-lapse but is not so ideal for a composite still image like this. Had I wanted this to be shot taken just for a still image composite I would have had to fix the exposure at more or less what it was at mid-sequence here, to keep the lunar disk at that brightness and detail. So be it! All were with the Rokinon 85mm lens and Canon 6D MkII at ISO 100. It was about -10° C this evening.

Moonrise at Dinosaur Park Panorama

A 180° panorama of the rising Full Moon and twilight colours over the badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta on December 29, 2020. This was the "Cold Winter" Moon of 2020. The view is overlooking the Red Deer River valley. I shot this panorama from the Park's entrance gate viewpoint. The image is a 14-segment panorama with the 50mm Sigma lens at f/4.5 and Canon EOS Ra at ISO 100, stitched with Adobe Camera Raw. The original is 34,000 pixels wide.

Jupiter and Saturn in Conjunction at Dinosaur Park (Dec 20, 2020)

Jupiter and Saturn, on the eve of their rare "Great Conjunction," shot here on December 20, 2020 from Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta. The two planets are very close here, only 8 arc minutes apart, just 2 arc minutes more than at closest approach the next night (which was cloudy!). Even so, they are resolved in this image with an 85mm lens, and were easily resolvable to the naked eye. Some of the moons of Jupiter are visible, particularly Callisto and Ganymede to the left of Jupiter. This was a superb night at the Park, with perfect skies and a mild temperature of only 0° C and no wind or frost. Illumination is from the twilight but also moonlight from the waxing quarter Moon off frame to the upper left. This is a blend of tracked (for the sky, to prevent star trailing) and untracked (for the ground) exposures: 7 x 30 second exposures for the ground (to bring out foreground detail) at f/2.8 and 5 x 8-second exposures for the sky at f/4, all at ISO 400 and with the Rokinon 85mm lens and Canon EOS Ra camera. The camera was on the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer 2i tracker. Stacking the tracked shots blurred the moving clouds and smoothed noise. Stacking the ground reduced noise. I shot this well past traditional "blue hour" when there was still colour in the sky to the camera, but the sky was dark enough to show stars, and the ground was beginning to light up with moonlight, highlighting the snow and ice patches.

Nebulas and Clusters Around the Small Sagittarius Starcloud

This is an impressive area of sky rich in bright and dark nebulas and open star clusters in Sagittarius and Serpens. This is closeup of the Small Sagittarius Starcloud, aka Messier 24, at bottom right, with the field extending north to include the nebulas M17, the Swan Nebula, and M16 at top right, the Eagle Nebula. Between M17 and M24 is the small star cluster M18. Patches of red and blue nebulosity at bottom right below M24 are IC 1283 and the blue reflection nebulas NGC 6589 and 6590. The prominent dark nebula at the right (west) edge of the Starcloud is Barnard 92 with its lone star embedded in it, with smaller B93 above it. At the left are the star clusters M25 (bottom) and NGC 6645, with the large dark nebula B312 above. This is a stack of 3 x 6-minute exposures with the William Optics RedCat 51mm astrograph at f/5 and the Canon EOS Ra at ISO 800 with LENR on as it was the warmest night of the summer, August 17, 2020. Aligned, stacked and mean combined in Photoshop. Autoguided with the ZWO ASIAir and ASI120MM guide camera with the RedCat on the Astro-Physics Mach1 mount. No filters employed here. Clouds thwarted more exposures.

North America Nebula NGC 7000 in Cygnus

The often-photographed (certainly by me) area of the North America Nebula, NGC 7000, near the bright star Deneb, which is in the frame at right, in Cygnus. The Pelican Nebula, IC 5067/70 is right of the North America, in the “Atlantic Ocean” so to speak. The nebulosity at bottom is the “Cygnus Arc,” IC 5068. The small patch of blue reflection nebulosity at top is IC 5076. The patches of dark nebulosity above the North America Nebula are B352 and B356. This is a stack and blend of: four exposures without a filter, each 8 minutes at ISO 800, and four exposures with an Optolong L-Enhance nebula filter to bring out the faintest nebulosity, each 16 minutes at ISO 1600. These are blended in with a Lighten mode. All were with the William Optics RedCat 51mm astrographic refractor at its native f/5 and Canon EOS Ra camera, the factory filter-modified camera capable of recording this type of hydrogen-alpha emitting nebulas. Guided with the ZWO ASIAir and ASI120MM guide camera, on the Astro-Physics Mach1 mount. Taken from home on a perfect summer night on August 15, 2020.

Comet NEOWISE at Columbia Icefields (July 27, 2020)

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.

Comet over the Columbia Icefields at Moonset

Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) on July 27, 2020, at right, over the Columbia Icefields with the Moon still lighting the peaks in a warm “bronze hour” light for a lunar alpenglow. The Moon is behind Snowdome Peak at centre and is also still lighting the sky a deep blue. The Milky Way is at left over Mount Andromeda. Arcturus is the bright star at top centre. This was more or less 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! Shooting a week earlier when the comet was brighter and larger would have been nice, but clouds would have got in the way. This was shot during a run of unusually clear nights at the Icefields, the first good clear nights according to the locals. I shot this during the brief “bronze hour” interval immediately after the Moon had disappeared behind Snowdome but was still lighting the peaks. So to be clear — the peaks are lit by the setting Moon, not by the Sun. This is not a composite of day and night shots; it is a well-timed and planned panorama shot as quickly as possible over a few minutes before the lighting changed. Lingering twilight lights the horizon down the Sunwapta Valley at right. The famous Athabasca Glacier is just left of centre; Snowdome Glacier is right of centre, with the glacial Sunwapta Lake in the foreground. Mount Athabasca is at far left with its glacier. This is a 17-segment (!) panorama with the 35mm Canon lens at f/2.5 and Canon EOS Ra camera at ISO 1600, for 20 seconds each, untracked. The overlap was more than is normally needed but the segments stitched perfectly with Adobe Camera Raw, which is not always the case with such scenes. LENR employed on all segments when shooting on this warm night. Dodging and burning applied to accentuate highlights and shadows. Topaz Sharpen AI applied. The original is over 27,000 pixels wide.

Comet NEOWISE and Big Dipper Over Badlands (July 22, 2020)

Another incredible sky this night! This is Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) over the badlands formations at Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta on July 22-23, 2020, with the Big Dipper above. A very active thunderstorm system moving northeastward this night but well to the west of me lights the horizon. Parallel bands of red and green airglow tint the sky, as does the blue of lingering summer twilight. Even with the bright sky the comet’s blue ion tail can be traced up to and past the Bowl of the Big Dipper. This is an exposure blend, with the landscape from a stack of seven exposures from 2.5 to 3.5 minutes long at f/2.8 and ISO 1600, stacked to smooth noise, blended with a single untracked 30-second exposure for the sky at ISO 6400 at f/2, all with the Sigma 24mm lens and Canon EOS Ra camera. The ground is illuminated by starlight and sky light only; no light painting was used here. Topaz DeNoise AI applied to the sky; Sharpen AI applied to the ground. Some light sculpting applied to the ground with a Dodge and Burn layer and a luminosity mask, to make the foreground less flat in lighting.

Comet NEOWISE Over Dinosaur Park (July 15, 2020)

This is Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) over the badlands and formations of Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, on the night of July 14-15, 2020, at about 12:30 am local time with it nearly due north and as low as it got for the night at this latitude of 51° N. A green and magenta aurora colours the northern sky also blue with perpetual summer twilight. Capella is at far right. The comet’s dim blue ion tail is visible here extending some 18° to the top of the frame; the whitish curving dust tail extends about 12° though it becomes lost in the sky still bright with twilight and the aurora this night. This is a classic comet! Very much the dimmer twin of Comet Hale-Bopp from April 1997. This is a blend of 6 exposures for the ground stacked to smooth noise, with a single exposure for the sky, with the 35mm Canon lens and Canon 6D MkII. The ground exposures are 1- and 2-minutes at ISO 1600 and f/2.8, while the single untracked sky exposure was 20 seconds at ISO 3200 and f/2.5. There was no Moon, thus the need to take very long exposures for the ground to reveal details in the landscape here illuminated by just starlight and the faint aurora that was to the north and that was barely visible to the eye. Otherwise the ground would have been a featureless silhouette. So, yes, this image shows much more than the eye could see unaided due to the long exposures, but that’s the point and attraction of astrophotography — to record celestial objects and scenes with more detail than the eye can see. Indeed, any exposure longer than a second is bound to show more than the eye can detect. However, in binoculars the ion tail was barely visible, helped by knowing it was there. But the dust tail could be see to this extent, but in binoculars! However, the comet was still a fine sight naked eye, with an obvious tail about 5° to 6° long to the eye, despite the bright midnight sky. LENR employed in camera on all shots this warm night to remove thermal speckling and colour casts the 6D MkII is prone to. Stacked and masked with Photoshop. Topaz DeNoise AI applied to the sky; Topaz Sharpen applied to the ground, plus a mild touch of ON1 Photo RAW Dynamic Contrast.

Panorama of Comet NEOWISE Over Prince of Wales Hotel (July 14, 2020)

A once-in-a-lifetime scene — A panorama of the dawn sky at 4 am on July 14, 2020 from Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada with Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) over the iconic Prince of Wales Hotel. Noctilucent clouds glow below the comet in the dawn twilight. Venus is rising right of centre paired with Aldebaran and the Hyades star cluster, while the Pleiades cluster shine above. The waning quarter Moon shines above the Vimy Peak at far right. The Big Dipper is partly visible above the mountain at far left. Capella and the stars of Auriga are at centre. This is an 8-segment panorama with the 35mm Canon lens at f/2.5 for 15 seconds each at ISO 100 with the Canon 6D MkII and stitched with Adobe Camera Raw.

Comet NEOWISE and Aurora Panorama (July 13, 2020)

Another amazing sky scene — A panorama of the late night sky just before midnight on July 13, 2020 from Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada with Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) over the front range of the Rocky Mountains and an arc of aurora across the north. Earlier, noctilucent clouds were also visible. Quite the show! This was taken from the Bison Compound access road. This is an 6-segment panorama with the 35mm Canon lens at f/2.2 for 25 seconds each at ISO 800 with the Canon 6D MkII and stitched with Adobe Camera Raw.

Comet NEOWISE over Red Deer River

Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) over the Red Deer River from Orkney Viewpoint north of Drumheller, Alberta, on the morning of July 11, 2020. The sky is brightening with dawn twilight and a small display of noctilucent clouds is on the horizon at right. The constellation of Auriga with the bright star Capella is at right. This is looking north toward the Bleriot Ferry terminal. Light from the waning gibbous Moon provides the illumination, plus twilight. Some ground fog lies in the valley below. This is a two-segment vertical panorama with the 35mm Canon lens at f/2.8 and Canon 6D MkII at ISO 200 for 13 seconds each. Stitched with Adobe Camera Raw with Perspective geometry.

Comet NEOWISE over Red Deer River Panorama (July 11, 2020)

What a magical scene this was! This is Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) over the sweep of the Red Deer River and Badlands from Orkney Viewpoint north of Drumheller, Alberta, on the morning of July 11, 2020. The sky is brightening with dawn twilight and a small display of noctilucent clouds is on the horizon right of centre. Venus and and Pleiades are rising at right. Venus was close to the star Aldebaran and in the Hyades star cluster, both just visible right on the horizon. This is looking north toward the Bleriot Ferry terminal. Light from the waning gibbous Moon provides the illumination, plus twilight. This nicely shows the arch of the twilight colours. This is a 6-segment panorama with the 50mm Sigma lens at f/2.8 and Canon 6D MkII at ISO 400 for 13 seconds each. Stitched with Adobe Camera Raw. Topaz DeNoise AI and Sharpen AI applied.