A 45° panorama of noctilucent clouds seen the night of June 1-2, 2020, first at dusk and then later, here, at dawn at about 3:15 a.m. MDT. This was from home in southern Alberta at latitude 51° N. This was the earliest in the season I had ever seen NLCs; they are more prevalent after summer solstice. Dark nearby weather clouds are silhouetted in front of the NLCs, which are at a height of some 80 km above the Earth near the edge of space. Note the north-south wavy structure and east-west herringbone patterns. Capella is at right of centre. This is a 4-section panorama with the 85mm Rokinon lens and Canon 6D MkII camera, for 3.2 seconds each at f/2.8 and ISO 400. Stitched with Adobe Camera Raw.
On May 23, 2020, the very thin crescent Moon (then 34 hours old) shines below bright Venus (10 days before its inferior conjunction with the Sun) and above it dimmer Mercury , then 10 days before its greatest elongation from the Sun in the evening sky. All were beautifully visible to the naked eye and a great sight in binoculars, looking very much like this scene captured with a 135mm telephoto lens. Venus was magnitude -4.4, Mercury was -0.7. This is a single shot at f/2.8 and 1/ 5 second at ISO 100 with the Canon EOS Ra which does bring out the sunset reds well.
