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.
The Milky Way over the old corral at the site of the 76 Ranch in the Frenchman Valley in Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan. I shot this Aug 26 on a perfect night, with aurora beginning to kick up but still low in brightness when I shot this so the sky was dark. The foreground is lit by starlight, by the aurora brightening in the north, and by the occasional flashes of spotlights from naturalists down the valley spotting for nocturnal ferrets. The green bands in the sky are from natural airglow. This is a composite stack of 5 images: 4 tracking the sky on the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer for the sky and 1 untracked shot with the motor off, which supplied the sharp ground. The blurred ground in the tracked shots was masked out in Photoshop. All images were 3 minutes at f/2.5 with the 24mm lens and Canon 5D MkII at ISO 1600.
The summer southern Milky Way over Reesor Lake in Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park, a Dark Sky Preserve. Only July 28/29, 2017, just after moonset with Sagittarius in the southwest, and Saturn just about to go behind the treeline. Wind rippled the water and prevented a reflection of stars and the Milky Way. Some airglow tints the sky. This is a composite of four untracked exposures for the ground (mean combined to smooth noise) and four tracked exposures for the sky taken immediately afterwards (again, mean combined to smooth noise). The ground shots were 2 minutes each at f/2.8 and ISO 3200, The sky shots were 1 minute each at f/2 and ISO 1600. All with the 20mm Sigma Art lens and Nikon D750. The tracker was the Star Adventurer Mini.
