A 180° panorama from southwest to northeast of the Columbia Icefields by night, under bright moonlight. The Big Dipper and Arcturus are at right and centre, respectively, to the north. Pity there was no aurora! Light from the waxing gibbous Moon off frame to the left in the south illuminates the landscape. The Milky Way is barely visible at left, washed out by the moonlight. Taken from the upper parking lot, not far from the Icefields Parkway, a higher vantage point for a better view of Athabasca Glacier at left, which cannot now be seen well from the lower parking lot as it has receded so far. The Stutfield Glacier is at centre. This is a 6-segment pan with the 16-35mm lens at 22mm and at f/2.8, each 20 seconds at ISO 800 with the Canon 5D MkII. Stitched with PTGui — Photoshop did nearly as good a job but left some gradient banding beween segments; PTGui blended them better.
The SpaceX Starlink satellite train from the first group of 60 satellites launched, captured May 26/27, 2019 from home in southern Alberta as they traveled through the Big Dipper high overhead at approximately 12:55 a.m. May 27, 2019. Most of the few dozen satellites were faint but on this pass 4 were quite bright, and easily naked eye, and similar to the Big Dipper stars in magnitude. Polaris is at lower right at the end of the Little Dipper handle. This is a frame grab from a 4K video at ISO 52000 with the Sony a7III and Canon 24mm lens at f/1.4. I stacked 8 frames to smooth noise but the satellites themselves are from one frame to keep them point like. Taking a longer exposure still image at a lower ISO was not an option here as the moving satellites would have blurred into a streak looking much like any single satellite trail. So taking a video at an ultra-high ISO speed, then extracting still frames was the method of choice though it produces a noisy image.
The old Atlas Coal Mine near East Coulee, Alberta, now a museum and tourist attraction. This is a composite of 20 x 1 minute exposures with the Canon 5D MkII and 16-35mm lens at 16mm and f/2.8, and ISO 1250. Taken June 27, 2013. While the Moon was up it was in some cloud and most of the illumination of the foreground comes from a sodium vapour light just off camera at right. Images stacked with StarCircleAcademy's Advanced Stacker Actions, Comet Streaks option.
