The Full "Cold" Moon of December 29, 2020 rising over the Badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, on the Red Deer River, here at left. The last light of the setting Sun was breaking through briefly, illuminating the far river bank, as the Moon rose into the dark shadow of the Earth and pink "Belt of Venus" glow in the upper atmosphere. Despite being full, the Moon rose this night about 30 minutes before sunset, allowing this lighting. The Moon was about 4 hours before being officially Full at this time. This is a single image with the Sigma 50mm lens on the Canon EOS Ra taken as part of a 500-frame time-lapse.
The still close pairing of Jupiter and Saturn in the evening twilight over the Bow River Valley, in southern Alberta, taken from the Siksika First Nations land near Blackfoot Crossing on December 28, 2020. The night was very clear with brilliant twilight colours. The waxing Moon was providing some of the foreground illumination. This is an HDR panorama of 3 x 3 panels: 3 segments, each with 3 exposures of 2, 4, and 8 seconds, to retain the sky colours but bring out the landscape details. Merged with Adobe Camera Raw. Shot with the Sigma 50mm lens on the red-sensitive Canon EOS Ra camera at ISO 100.
The pairing of Jupiter and Saturn in the evening twilight, on December 27, 2020. This was from home, on a cold, frosty night as the ice fog began to move in for the night. Brighter Jupiter is to the left of Saturn and is pulling away from Saturn here, but they were still separated by 40 arc minutes this evening. The background image is a stack of 5 untracked exposures to smooth the motion of the clouds and add a softer effect, but the planets come from just one of the exposures, all being 4-second shots with the 50mm Sigma lens at f/3.5 and with the Canon EOS Ra at ISO 200. A mild Orton glow layer added to further soften the image.
