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.
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.
This is the central area of Cygnus and its bright Milky Way starcloud surrounded by red nebulosity. At left is the star Sadr (gamma Cygni) with the complex of nebulosity catalogued as IC 1318. At centre is the distinct Crescent Nebula, NGC 6888, a expanding nebula created by winds from a hot Wolf-Rayet star. At bottom left is the star cluster Messier 29, though looking a little lost in the rich starfields here. At top is the cluster IC 1311, looking more obvious than M29 but not observed visually and included in the NGC catalog. Odd. At far right are the large and loose star clusters NGC 6883 and NGC 6871, the latter an obvious binocular sight. To the left of Sadr is the small cluster NGC 6910. The dark nebulas B145 and LDN 862 are at right. The small emission nebula at bottom is Sharpless 2-104. This is a stack of 6 x 6-minute exposures at ISO 1600 without a filter, blended with 8 x 12-minute exposures at ISO 3200 taken through the Optolong L-Enhance dual narrowband filter to really bring out the faint nebulosity. All were with the William Optics RedCat 51mm f/5 astrograph and red-sensitive Canon EOS Ra full-frame mirrorless camera. Blending the two sets of exposures brings out the nebulosity while retaining the more natural colours in the stars and background sky. All stacked, aligned and blended in Photoshop CC. Taken from home in the wee hours of the morning of May 15/16, 2020 before dawn’s light began to wash out the sky.
