The asterism known as Kemble’s Cascade, named for Canadian astronomer and Franciscan friar Father Lucien Kemble who first drew people’s attention to this interesting line of stars near the star cluster NGC 1502 at lower left. This is in Camelopardalis. This is with the AM 106mm apo refractor at f/6 and Canon 6D MkII at ISO 1600 for a stack of 6 x 4 minutes exposures. A “glow” layer with a Luminar Orton glow effect adds the star glows, while a layer with the Astronomy Tools star spikes action adds the diffraction spikes. Taken from home Nov. 28, 2018.
Kemble’s Cascade and the star cluster NGC 1502 in Camelopardalis. The northern portion of the Cascade of stars is cut off at left here. The field includes the southern portion and the star cluster NGC 1502 at the south end of the chain of stars. Taken from home Nov. 25, 2016 with the 130mm AP f/6 apo refactor with the 6x7 field flattener and Canon 6D at ISO 800 for a stack of 4 x 6 minute exposures. Named for Father Lucien Kemble, an ardent deep-sky observer from Canada. Natural haze added some star glows, plus additional glows added with a Gaussian blur layer.
Galaxy and glacier! The Milky Way over glacier-fed Lake Louise and Victoria Glacier in Banff National Park, Alberta. The Scutum Starcloud is just above and setting over Victoria Glacier, accompanied by star clusters in Serpens and Ophiuchus. Some airglow tints the sky above the mountains green and magenta. I shot this on a fine night on October 17, 2022 from the usual lakeshore promenade. Planning the timing of the shot was done with The Photographer's Ephemeris (TPE) and TPE3D. While an iconic picture-postcard scene by day, it is a challenge to shoot at night as lights from the Chateau Lake Louise behind the camera illuminate the foreground and the distant wooded mountainsides. This is a blend of two sets of exposures: - a stack of two untracked 2-minute exposures for the ground at ISO 800 - a stack of four tracked 1-minute exposures for the sky at ISO 1600 All with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at f/2.8 and 20mm and Canon R5, and with the camera and tripod not moving between image sets, and on the Star Adventurer Mini tracker. The reflected stars are trailed as they come from the untracked ground shots. Tracking reflected stars is very tough as it requires re-aligning the tracker to turn around the reflected celestial pole, in my case 51° below the horizon, not very practical. Panoramas stitched in Adobe Camera Raw and blended and masked in Photoshop. A mild Orton glow effect added to the sky with Luminar Neo and a ground enhancement effect added with Radiant Photo plug-in.
