A collage of the northern hemisphere winter sky, with a background mosaic of the sky, surrounded by telephoto lens close-ups of starfields in that sky, each containing bright star clusters and nebulas along and around the Milky Way. The star clusters are all bright and obvious in binoculars, if not to the naked eye, but the nebulas are all faint and show up only in long exposure photos. The exception is the bright Orion Nebula at lower right – it can be seen with the naked eye and is glorious in a telescope. The background mosaic is made of 8 segments, in two columns of 4 rows, with generous overlap. Each segment was made of 4 x 2.5-minute exposures stacked with mean combine stack mode to reduce noise, plus 2 x 2.5-minute exposures taken through the Kenko Softon filter layered in with Lighten belnd mode to add the star glows. Each segment was shot at f/2.8 with the original 35mm Canon L-series lens and the filter-modified (by Hutech) Canon 5D MkII at ISO 1600, riding on the iOptron Sky-Tracker. All stacking and stitching in Photoshop CC 2015. The soft diffusion filter helps bring out the star colours in this area of sky rich in brilliant giant stars. I shot the segments on a very clear night on December 5, 2015 from the Quailway Cottage at Portal, Arizona. The close-ups are each stacks of 3-minute exposures with a 200mm f/2.8 telephoto lens and the filter-modified Canon 5D Mark II at ISO 800. Taken in January 2019 from home, using a Fornax Lightrack II tracker.
