Orion and the winter stars and constellations rising in the light of a first quarter Moon on December 2, 2019. This was from home in Alberta. Orion is above the trees with Aldebaran in Taurus and the Pleiades above him. At top left is the star Capella and the constellation of Auriga. At left of centre are Castor and Pollux in Gemini. Just rising amid the trees is Procyon in Canis Minor. Sirius and Canis Major had not yet risen. The timing nicely captures 4 of the sky’s best star clusters in a row across the sky, with the Beehive just rising at lower left, the Hyades at upper right, and the Pleiades at top. Between the Hyades and the Beehive is the small binocular cluster in Gemini, M35, but visible in this wide-angle view. The low setting Moon behind the camera to the right added a warm “bronze hour” tint to the landscape. Tracks in the snow are from deer. This is a blend of untracked exposures for the ground and tracked exposures for the sky, using the Star Adventurer tracker. The ground and sky are each stacks of 4 x 1.5-minute exposures with the 15-35mm Canon RF lens at 15mm and f/2.8 and on the Canon EOS Ra camera at ISO 800. I had some fun with filters on this one, applying a Soft Glow filter with Luminar Flex to the ground and an Orton Glow effect to the sky with ON1 Photo RAW 2020.
Orion and the winter stars rising on a late October night, with Sirius just clearing the horizon at centre bottom, Capella and the Pleiades are at top. M44 cluster is at far left. Taken with the Canon 15-35mm RF lens at 15mm and f/2.8 and the EOS Ra camera at ISO 800 as part of testing. A stack of 4 x 2-minute exposures on the Star Adventurer.
A panorama of the Kp5 level aurora seen October 24-25, 2019 from home in a panorama across the north. The aurora always appeared as a diffuse glow and arc without much structure or motion this night, though the patchy clouds didn’t help! But it shows how a bright aurora can shine through the clouds. And this illustrates the difference between the aurora borealis and “aurora commercialis!” — the urban sky glows. The light pollution from Calgary and Strathmore to the west light the sky yellow at left. Orion and the winter stars are rising at right. Polaris is left of centre at top. Deneb and Vega are in the northwest at left. This is a 6-segment panorama with the 15mm Venus Optics lens at f/2 and Sony a7III at ISO 1600 for 20 seconds each. Stitched with Adobe Camera Raw.
