Big Dipper over Num-Ti-Jah lodge at Bow Lake, Banff National Park, Alberta. Camera-on-tripod exposure with 28mm lens at f/2.8 and Ektachrome 400 slide film, for 40 seconds. In full moonlight.
Big Dipper stars and Old Faithful geyser, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. September 1995 Ektachrome 400 slide film 28mm lens at f/2.8, 30 second exposure Full Moon provides illumination, plus some light from Old Faithful Lodge off frame to the right.
This is the Milky Way of the autumn season in the Northern Hemisphere, on a late September night, from the very dark site of Red Rock Canyon, in Waterton Lakes National Park, Canada. The scene is a crop from the full 360° rectangular panorama, taken about 11:00 pm. Illumination is solely by starlight. Being autumn, the larches and aspens are in autumn colours. Snow is on Mount Blakiston at left, while the sharp peak at centre is Anderson Peak. The galactic centre is toward the southwest at left of centre, though Sagittarius itself had set by the time I shot this panorama. The bright star cloud of Scutum is above the mountains. The Milky Way stretches up through Aquila, through the Summer Triangle stars, and across the top as the Milky Way was then passing through the zenith. At right, the sky is red from airglow and a dim aurora. At left is the dim glow of the Gegenschein. My other camera is in the scene, shooting a time-lapse of the Milky Way motion. This is a multi-tier panorama, with the full 360° panorama consisting of 48 segments (!), in 4 tiers of 12 segments each, taken with the iPano motorized panning unit. Each exposure was 30 seconds at f/2 with the 24mm lens and Canon 6D at ISO 6400. Stitching was with PTGui, which did it flawlessly. The original of this image is 12,800 x 5,600 pixels.
