The winter stars and constellations rising over the moonlit badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, on November 27, 2017. Orion is at centre; Taurus above, and Gemini at left. Sirius is just rising above the hill in the distance at centre. This is a stack of 6 x 15-second exposures for the ground, mean combined to smooth noise, and a single 15-second exposure for the sky, all with the Rokinon 14mm lens at f/2.5 and Canon 6D MkII at ISO 1600, with LENR on. I applied a 3-pixel Gaussian blur to a duplicate sky layer, blended with Lighten, to add an “Orton effect” style glow to the stars.
Orion rising in star trails and in the moonlight, at Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, on November 27, 2017. Light is from the 8-day waxing Moon off camera to the right. This is a stack of 100 exposures for the star trails, followed by a gap of a miniute, then a final single exposure to add the point-like stars at the ends of the trails. Another gaussian blur layer adds the star glows. The 100 star trail frames were extracted from the end of a 1200-frame time-lapse sequence. All exposures were 10 seconds at f/2 with a 24mm Sigma Art lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 800. Stacking was with the Advanced Stacker Plus actions from Star Circle Academy, v14e.
The summer Milky Way towering over the sandstone concretions and badlands at Red Rock Coulee Natural Area, in southeast Alberta. Taken July 26, 2017. Saturn is the bright object amid the Dark Horse dark lanes in the Milky Way at right. Sagittarius is just above the horizon amid some cloud. The bright star at top left is Altair in Aquila. This is a composite of 10 tracked exposures for the sky (mean combined to smooth noise) taken immediately after 4 untracked exposures for the ground (again, mean combined to smooth noise). Each exposure was 1 minute at f/2.2 with the Sigma 20mm Art lens and ISO 3200 with the Nikon D750. The tracker was the Star Adventurer Mini.
