The Milky Way over the Milk River in southern Alberta at Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park, near the Montana border. The Sweetgrass Hills on the horizon are in Montana. The buidlings in the river valley are recreations of a 19th century North West Mounted Police post. Jupiter is the bright object in the Dark Horse area, while Saturn is dimmer to the left. This was July 25, 2017. This is a stack of four 2-minute tracked exposures for the sky and a stack of four 2-minute untracked exposures for the ground, all at f/2 and ISO 1600 with the Sigma 20mm Art lens and Nikon D750. The tracker was the Star Adventurer Mini. The version is re-proprocessed in 2018 from the original 2017 version.
A multiple exposure composite showing the arc of the Full Moon of July 9/10, 2017 low across the southern sky on a summer night from dusk to dawn. This illustrates the low arc of the Moon across the sky in northern summer, from southeast at left to southwest at right. The sky is a blend of three long exposures: • for the dusk 10 p.m. sky (left) with crepuscular rays in the clear twilight, • the 2 a.m. middle-of-the-night sky with the Moon nearly due south (middle) with stars and iridescent colours around the Moon in light cloud, • and the dawn 5 a.m. sky (right) with increasing clouds hiding the Moon. The Moon disks come from a series of short 1/15-second exposures, to record just the disks of the bright Moon. I took shots every minute but selected images taken at 10-minute intervals here for the composite. Taken from home on a warm and dry summer night with no dew! Stacked and blended in Photoshop, with Lighten blend modes and gradient masks. Shot with a 15mm full-frame fish-eye lens and Canon 6D.
The “river of stars” – the Milky Way – arching over the scenic bend of the Red Deer River, Alberta, from the Orkney Viewpoint overlooking the Badlands and river valley, in a 270° panorama. To the north at left, a weak aurora shines along the horizon. Bands of airglow also colour the sky to the east at centre, and perpetual twilight lights the sky at far left. To the south at right, the Milky Way becomes lost amid the light pollution from Drumheller, Alberta, made more obvious by some clouds drifting through. So this is a study in skyglows: aurora, twilight, airglow, Milky Way and urban skyglow, and of the contrast between the natural sky and light polluted sky. And of course, I like the way the curve of the Milky Way is mirrored in the curve of the river, which is why I picked this spot and this night in spring, when the Milky Way is still arching across the east and not overhead as it is later in summer. The most prominent stars reflected in the still waters of the rive are the stars of Delphinus the Dolphin, but there are no dolphins in this river! Only ones made of stars. This is a stitch of 8 segments with the Sigma 20mm Art lens, in portrait mode, and Nikon D750. Each 30 seconds at f/2 and ISO 3200. Stitched with Adobe Camera Raw. Taken on a mild and moonless night, May 20, 2017.
