The waning crescent Moon above Venus (at centre) and Jupiter (lower left) lined up across the dawn sky on December 31, 2018. Mercury was even lower but is not visible here. This is an HDR stack (using Photoshop HDRPro) of 5 exposures with the 35mm Canon lens at f/2.8 and Canon 6D MkII at ISO 200, with an Orton glow layer added with Luminar for artistic effect, blended with luminosity masks, and star spikes with Astronomy Tools.
The Full Moon rising on December 22, 2018, the day after the winter solstice, in a perfectly clear sky and over the distant horizon to the northeast over the snow-covered prairie. Some cows are grazing at left! The top edge of the Moon has a green rim and the bottom edge a red rim, from atmospheric refraction. But it made for a Christmas-coloured Moon ornament on the horizon! The dark lunar mare and even the bright rays splashing from Tycho at bottom are visible. This is a close up with the 105mm refractor, the Astro-Physics Traveler, at f/5.8 for a focal length of 609mm, and with the Canon 6D MkII at ISO 200, with the camera on auto exposure and taken as part of a 950-frame time-lapse sequence. This is a single exposure.
A passage of the International Space Station high across the north in the late blue hour of twilight, with the stars appearing, though the ISS outshines them all. This was the 5:17 pm pass on December 6, 2018 from southern Alberta, and taken with a fixed camera on a tripod, so the stars are trailing slightly as the rotate about Polaris at lower centre. The view is looking north though the fish-eye lens takes in much of the sky. The Big Dipper skims low across the north at botton. On board was Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques on his third day in space of a 6-month mission. This is a stack of 21 10-second exposures at f/3.5 with the Sigma 8mm lens and Canon 6D MkII at ISO 400. The one-second interval between exposures adds the gaps.
