Orion rising at right, with Sirius, the Dog Star, just clearing the treetops amid the glow of light pollution, while Procyon, the bright star in Canis Minor, shines to the left, having risen before Sirius, thus its name - Pro-Cyon — before the Dog. At upper left are the twin stars of Castor and Pollux in Gemini the Twins. Sirius was rising about 8 pm. The Beehive star cluster, M44, is at the left of frame. Some bands of red airglow add red streaks in addition to the red nebulas in the frame. Taken from home in southern Alberta on a very clear night January 2, 2016. This is a stack of 5 x 2-minute exposures plus another 3 x 2 minute exposures with the Kenko Softon filter to add the star glows, each set Median combined stacked to eliminate aircraft trails. The ground comes from one image. All were tracked, at f/2.8 with the 24mm lens and Canon 5D MkII at ISO 1600.
Orion, at right, rising in star trails behind the old plough, at home, on a bright moonlit night in November, with light from a waxing gibbous Moon. Procyon is just rising above the horizon at left. Clouds from incoming winter weather bringing snow are intruding at right. Exposures started about 7:30 pm with Orion just starting to rise, and ended at about 10 pm with Orion at upper right in the frame. This is a stack of 350 images for the stars, each 20 seconds at f/5.6 with the 35mm lens Canon L-series lens and Canon 6D at ISO 1600. A final single exposure added the more point-like stars at the ends of the trails. The ground comes from a stack of 8 frames in the sequence, mean combined, to reduce noise. All stacking with the Advanced Stacker Plus actions, with the Long Streaks effect, from StarCircleAcademy.com.
