The Milky Way over Athabasca Glacier and the Columbia Icefields in Jasper National Park, Sept 14, 2014 on a very clear night before moonrise. The centre of the Galaxy area in Sagittarius is setting in the southwest behind the Icefields. The foreground light on the moraines is wash from lights on the Glacier View Inn and Icefields Centre. Other ground illumination on the peaks is from starlight though the tops of the peaks are just being lit by light from the rising waning Moon which is also beginning to light the sky a deep blue. Mt. Andromeda is at left. The Summer Triangle stars are at centre. This is a composite of 5 shots, tracked, for the sky, blended in Lighten mode and 4 shots, untracked, for the ground, blended in Mean combine mode to reduce noise. The trailed sky is masked out of the ground shots and the trailed ground is masked out of the sky shots, so both ground and sky are sharp but the sky has the benefit of the longer exposures required to really bring out Milky Way details. Each sky shot was 3 minutes and each ground shot was 4 minutes, all at f/3.2 with the 15mm lens and filiter-modified Canon 5D MkII at ISO 1600. Tracked on the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer, with the drive turned off for the ground images at the end of the sky exposures.
The Milky Way over Athabasca Glacier at the Columbia Icefields in Jasper National Park, Sept 14, 2014 on a very clear night before moonrise. The centre of the Galaxy area in Sagittarius is setting in the southwest behind the Icefields. The foreground light on the moraines is wash from lights on the Glacier View Inn and Icefields Centre. Other ground illumination on the peaks is from starlight. Mt. Andromeda is at left. This is a composite of 4 shots, tracked, for the sky, blended in Lighten mode and 4 shots, untracked, for the ground, blended in Mean combine mode to reduce noise. The trailed sky is masked out of the ground shots and the trailed ground is masked out of the sky shots, so both ground and sky are sharp but the sky has the benefit of the longer exposures required to really bring out Milky Way details. Each sky shot was 3 minutes and each ground shot was 4 minutes, all at f/2.5 with the 24mm lens and Canon 6D at ISO 1250. Tracked on the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer, with the drive turned off for the ground images at the end of the sky exposures.
Orion over Mt. Athabasca (left) and Mt. Andromeda (right) at the Columbia Icefields, Jasper National Park, on the morning of Sept 13, 2014 in bright moonlight from the waning gibbous Moon off frame at upper right, and from brightening morning twilight. Though hard to see, there are a couple of spots of light on the glacier on Mt. Athabasca at left from headlamps from climbers ascending before dawn. I was able to watch their lights moving up the mountain while I was doing this pre-dawn shoot. This is a single 10 second exposure at f/2.5 with the Canon 24mm lens and Canon 6D at ISO 800.
