A panoroma of the Milky Way around Orion and Canis Major, taking in Canis Minor as well, including the dog stars Sirius (lower) and Procyon (upper left). Around Orion you can see Barnard's Loop, as well as the Horsehead Nebula area below the Belt of Orion and the Orion Nebula in the Sword of Orion. Betelgeuse is at top left of Orion, Rigel at bottom right. Several star clusters are visible at this scale including M41 below Sirius and M46 and M47 left of Sirius. This is a mosaic of 2 frames, each a stack of 4 or 5 x 4 minute exposures at f/2.8 with the 35mm lens and modified Canon 5D MkII at ISO 800, plus each segment also having a glow layer composed of 2 x 4 minute exposures through the Kenko Softon diffusion filter. So a total of 11 exposures for this 2-frame mosaic, stacked and stitched in Photoshop CC. Taken from Painted Pony Resort in SW New Mexico, December 7, 2013. Lots of frost this night.
Orion and Sirius rising over the Peloncillo Mountains of southwest New Mexico, on a clear night in December in the early evening. The Belt stars of Orion point down to Sirius, the Dog Star. The long tracked exposures and the filter-modified camera brings out the red nebulsity in the area, such as Barnard’s Loop, the Lambda Orionis bubble at top, the Horsehead Nebula area near the Belt, the very bright Orion Nebula, and the intense Rosette Nebula at left. Airglow add some bands of red and green toward the horizon. This is a mean-combined stack of 5 tracked exposures for the sky, each 2.5 minutes at ISO 1600, and 3 short 30-second but also tracked exposures for the ground at ISO 6400, again mean combined to smooth noise. As the ground exposures were also tracked, the ground is blurred slightly. An additional short exposure taken through a Kenko Softon A filter blended in with Lighten mode adds the star glows for accentuating star colours and the prominence of bright stars. All with the 35mm Canon L-series lens at f/2.5 and Canon 5D MkII camera, on the Star Adventurer Mini tracker, and shot from the Quailway Cottage in SE Arizona.
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.
