The blue glow of summer solstice twilight in the north (at left below the Big Dipper) and the Milky Way arching over Castle Mountain at right, on the Bow Valley Parkway, in Banff National Park, on a very clear moonless night June 4, 2016. The road seems to lead from the Big Dipper to the Milky Way. Despite this being shot after midnight, the sky to the north is still bright with twilight which lasts all night at this latitude near solstice. However, the Milky Way still stands out. In early June the Milky Way arches across the eastern sky and is not yet overhead as it is later in northern summer, making it easier to frame in a pan like this. The Big Dipper at upper left is distorted by the map projection used to create the pan, which stretches the sky across the top near the zenith to fill the rectangular frame, like Greenland being distorted in Mercator maps. Polaris is left of top centre - the Dipper bowl still points to it. This is a panorama stitched and cropped from 28 panels in 4 tiers of 7 panels each, shot with the iPano motorized panning unit. Each exposure was 20 seconds at f/2.5 with the Sigma 24mm Art lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 5000. Stitched with PTGui.
A 360° panorama of the summer solstice sky, taken from home at latitude 51° North, at 1:00 a.m. on the night of June 22/23, 2017, with an abundance of sky glows: - The yellow and blue glow to the north, at centre, of perpetual twilight (the sky never gets astronomically dark) - A minor display of northern lights adding green and magenta to the north - Some faint green bands of airglow to the west (far left) and east (right of centre) - And the Milky Way arching across the sky from NE to SW. - Light pollution lights the clouds yellow from sodium vapour lamps. However, there were no noctilucent clouds this night, which would have addded another form of solstice skyglow. Highlights include: - The Big Dipper and Arcturus are at far left - a satellite pierces the handle of the Big Dipper - Polaris is left of centre - the Summer Triangle stars are at right of centre straddling the Milky Way - Saturn is at far right above the horizon in the Milky Way - the Galactic Centre is in the south at far right low on the horizon as it is from this latitude - the Andromeda Galaxy is rising in the NE at centre. This is a stitch of 6 segments, each with the 12mm Rokinon full-frame fish-eye lens, horizontally framed, on the Nikon D750, all 40 seconds at f/2.8 and ISO 3200. Stitched with PTGui. Shot from home in southern Alberta.
