Orion rising behind the rock formations of City of Rocks State Park, New Mexico with a first quarter Moon providing the illumination. This is a single exposure, 30 seconds at f/2.8 with the 24mm lens and Canon 6D at ISO 800. It is one frame from 280 shot for a star trail and time-lapse sequence.
Star trails showing Orion and Taurus rising behind the rock formations of City of Rocks State Park, New Mexico. I shot this Monday, Dec 29, 2014. The colours of the stars and trails have been boosted in vibrancy to show the colour differences better. Red Betelgeuse is at left, while the pinkish Orion Nebula is at centre. The cyan trail at right is Comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2). Light from the waxing quarter Moon illuminates the foreground. A satellite streak is at right of centre. This is a stack of 260 exposures, each 30 seconds at f/2/8 with the 24mm lens and Canon 6D at ISO 400. The foreground is mostly from one frame, the first frame, to preserve shadows. I also added larger star glows around the brighter stars of Orion to make the constellation patern more obvious. It starts just above the rocks at lower left and rises to above centre. The images were stacked with the Advanced Stacker Actions from Star Circle Academy, using the Elastic Stars effect to add point-like stars from the first and last frames.
Orion over Mt. Athabasca (left) and Mt. Andromeda (right) at the Columbia Icefields, Jasper National Park, on the morning of Sept 13, 2014 in bright moonlight from the waning gibbous Moon off frame at upper right, and from brightening morning twilight. Though hard to see, there are a couple of spots of light on the glacier on Mt. Athabasca at left from headlamps from climbers ascending before dawn. I was able to watch their lights moving up the mountain while I was doing this pre-dawn shoot. This is a single 10 second exposure at f/2.5 with the Canon 24mm lens and Canon 6D at ISO 800.
