The heart of the Coma-Virgo galaxy cluster known as Markarian’s Chain, with bright M84 and M86 at right of centre and M87 at lower left. The rest of the chain and group are made of fainter NGC and IC galaxies. Galaxies to about 15th magnitude are recorded. This is a stack of 12 x 8-minute exposures with the Canon EOS Ra at ISO 800 and SharpStar 100QII apo astrograph at f/5.8. Stacked and aligned in Photoshop. Taken from home March 25, 2020. Starizona Galaxy Enhance action applied.
The trio of Messier galaxies, M98, M99, and M100 near the star 6 Comae Berenices along with fainter NGC galaxies. The face-on spiral M100 is at top right; the edge-on spiral M98 is at lower right; the face-on spiral M99, the Coma Pinwheel, is at bottom. The pair of galaxies to the left of M99 is NGC 4298 and NGC 4302. This is a stack of 7 x 5-minute exposures with the SharpStar HNT150 Hyperbolic Newtonian astrograph at f/2.8 and Canon EOS Ra camera at ISO 800.
The Milky Way, with the starclouds of the galactic core in Sagittarius at left and the head of Scorpius at right, over a still ice-covered Cameron Lake, a high altitude alpine lake in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada. This was on a very clear night on June 2, 2021. The Lagoon Nebula, M8, and M24 Small Sagittarius Starcloud are prominent at left. Antares and the Rho Ophiuchi dark lanes are at right just over the mountain ridge, with the tracked shots timed to catch Antares before it set behind the peak. The Galactic "Dark Horse" is at centre, with this area of sky about as high as it would get for the night — this is right on the Canada-US border at 49° N. The landscape is lit only by starlight and residual airglow. Cameron Lake is in the extreme southwest corner of Alberta and is certainly one of the darkest places in Canada. Waterton Lakes is a Dark Sky Preserve. The slope at left is scarred from the 2017 Kenow Fire. This is a blend of tracked and untracked exposures: a stack of 2 x 8-minute untracked shots at ISO 400 for the ground, and a stack of 4 x 2-minute tracked shots at ISO 1600 for the sky. All were with the 35mm Canon L-series EF lens at f/2.8 and Canon Ra camera. The tracker was the little MSM Move-Shoot-Move Rotator, polar aligned with the laser. The ground shots were taken immediately after the tracked sky shots. Stacked, masked and blended in Photoshop.
