Twas the night of Christmas 13, and all across the sky, All the stars were twinkling, and Orion shone on high. Orion and the winter stars and constellations above a snowy prairie scene in Alberta, on Christmas night, 2013. This is a stack of 5 x 4 minute exposures with the 14mm Rokinon lens at f/2.8 and Canon 5D MkII at ISO 1600. Images tracked on the iOptron SkyTracker.
The constellation of Orion the hunter, taken Febraury 17, 2012 from home. This is a 4-image stack of 5-minute exposures with the Canon 5D Mark II at ISO 800 and Sigma 50mm lens at f/3.2. Light haze added the natural glows around stars (no filter employed here). Colour correction applied to reduce sky glow gradient at bottom of frame.
A vertical sweep with a 15mm ultrawide lens from the horizon to past the zenith, taking in a large part of the northern winter Milky Way. Orion is right of centre; Canis Major and Sirius (the night sky’s brightest star) are below and to the left of orion. The second brightest star in the night sky, Canopus, is just above the southern horizon at right. It just clears the horizon at 32° North latitude. Jupiter is the bright object at left, just left of the Beehive star cluster, M44, in Cancer. The Pleiades star cluster, M45, is at upper right in Taurus. The larger Hyades star cluster is below it. The small light dome on the horizon at left is from Las Cruces and El Paso. Otherwrise the site was perfectly dark and free of any man-made light sources. I shot this March 10, 2015 from the summit of the Trail of the Mountain Spirits Highway, Hwy 15, in the Gila Wilderness of southern New Mexico, at an altitude of 7900 feet. I shot this in the last of the deepening twilight before the sky was completely black. Some twilight blue remains. The bright glow at upper right is from the top of the Zodiacal Light cone in the western sky - a natural form of “light pollution.” The image is a stack of 4 x 3-minute tracked exposures, with the 15mm lens at f/3.5 and Canon 5D MkII at ISO 1600. The camera was on the Star Adventurer tracker.
