The Milky Way, often described in mythologies as a river in the sky, shines over the Bow River in Banff National Park on a very clear night in early June. The viewpoint is the famous Morant’s Curve on the Bow Valley Parkway, overlooking the Bow, the CPR rail line following the river, and the peaks of the Continental Divide, including Mt. Temple at right near Lake Louise. The location is named for Nicolas Morant who photographed trains in the Rockies using large format cameras from here when under the employ of the CPR. Mars is the bright object at centre, west of Scorpius with Antares and Saturn, then to the east, the star clouds of the galactic centre region of the Milky Way above the southern horizon, in Sagittarius. The Milky Way extends up into Scutum, Serpens, and Aquila. The sky is not black but a deep blue from the perpetual twilight in the sky in early June (this was June 4, 2016) at this latitude. Some green airglow also discolours the sky. Several satellite trails are in the sky as well. This is a stitch of 9 panels to form a partial panorama, looking south and west, each exposure being 20 seconds at f/2.5 with the 24mm Sigma Art lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 5000. Shot with the iPano panning unit and stitched with PTGui.
The arch of the northern spring Milky Way across the eastern sky, as seen on a beautifully clear and mild spring night at Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta on May 14, 2018. The galactic centre in Sagittarius is at right to the south. Jupiter is the bright object in the southwest at far right; above it Arcturus. The Summer Triangle stars are rising in the east at centre, including bright blue-white Vega at top centre. The Big Dipper is at far left. Due north and the North Star are at left toward the faint yellow-green and magenta glow of aurora on the horizon. Little of the aurora was visible to the eye. Bands of green and red airglow colour the sky at centre and at right to the south. The distinct and sharp-edged band of airglow was present all through the shooting session. This is a stitch of 21 segments, in 3 tiers of 7 each, taken with the Syrp Genie Mini controller in panorama mode, but with the camera manually raised from 0° to 30° to 60° altitude for each of the three tiers. The Mini did the azimuth panning and shutter control automatically. All exposures were 30 seconds at f/2.8 with the Sigma 20mm Art lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400. Stitching was with PTGui which did the job fast and seamlessly.
A 360° panorama taken at the old Larson Ranch site in the Frenchman River valley in Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan. I shot this by good luck as an aurora hit its substorm peak covering much of the northern sky and lighting the ground and ranch buildings green. The Larsons ran their ranch here from the 1920s until 1985 when theirs became first land to be bought for the Park. This is a stitch of 8 segments, each shot with the 15mm full-frame fish-eye lens at f/3.2 and Canon 6D at ISO 2500 for 1 minute each.
