The summer Milky Way and galactic core area in Sagittarius, setting on a late summer evening in mid-September, with some of the foliage starting to turn to autumn colours. Thin cloud in the sky this night added the star glows naturally. This was from home in southern Alberta at latitude 51° N. The Small Sagittarius Starcloud, M24, is prominent above the bushes, with the reddish nebulas M17 and M16 above and flanked by the star clusters M25 and M23 (just in the bushes). Above M24 is the Scutum Starcloud with the star cluster M11. This is two tracked and stacked 2-mnute exposures blended with a single untracked 2-minute exposure for the ground, all with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at 28mm and f/2.8, and Canon R5 at ISO 1600, on the Star Adventurer 2i tracker. Taken on a night of lens testing as a "grab" shot. It serves to illustrate this region of sky and its configuation in late summer from mid-northern latitudes.
The Milky Way through the region of the tail of Scorpius, photographed with it high in the sky from Australia. At bottom are the clusters and nebulas of the False Comet area around NGC 6124. Above and at centre are the red nebulas of NGC 6334, the Cat’s Paw, and NGC 6357 (sometimes called the Lobster Nebula, for a “Paws and Claws” pairing). The clusters Messier 6 and Messier 7 are at top left with M7 lost in the star clouds of the Milky Way. The Galactic Centre lies at top left. This is a stack of 5 x 2-minute exposures at f/2.8 with the Rokinon 85mm lens, and filter-modified Canon 5D MkII at ISO 2500. Taken from Tibuc Gardens Cottage near Coonabarabran, Australia. The image could be turned 90° CCW to better resemble its orientation in the sky in which it was photographed in the southern hemisphere, This orientation matches the view in the northern hemisphere.
The summer Milky Way and galactic centre area to the south over the Milk River in Alberta and the Sweetgrass Hills of Montana, from the viewpoint road at Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park, Alberta, on New Moon night, August 1, 2016. Sagittarius and the Dark Horse of dust lanes in Ophiuchus and Serpens is above the southern horizon, as are the star clusters M6 and M7 in Scorpius. Mars and Saturn are at right, with Saturn above Antares. This is a stack of 10 images, average mean combined, for the ground to smooth noise, and a single untracked exposure for the sky. All are 30 seconds at f/2 with the 20mm Sigma Art lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 4000. These frames were from the beginning of a motion control panning sequence for a time-lapse movie, with the Syrp Genie Mini, but in the initial frames before the Genie began to move.
