A 360° panorama of the northern spring sky taken from home on a very clear night April 20, 2020. The Milky Way is as low as it gets from my latitude of 51° North and appears here as a low arc across the northern horizon at right. To the south at left the faint glow of Gegenschein is visible in Virgo around the star Spica. There is the suggestion of the even fainter Zodiacal Band stretching across the south over to the western sky at centre brightened by light pollution and with a few annoying clouds over the urban areas to the west. Gemini, Cancer and Leo are at centre; Auriga and Perseus are right of centre. Arcturus is the bright star at upper left, Vega is the bright star at far right. This is a stitch of 8 segments each untracked for 30 seconds at f/2.8 with the Rokinon 12mm full-frame fish-eye lens in portrait orientation, and Nikon D750 at ISO 3200. I used LENR in-camera dark frame subtraction to reduce shadow noise and discolouration. — images shot without LENR had a lot of magenta cast in the shadows. Stitched with PTGui and assembled with the equirectangular projection. Topaz DeNoise AI applied to the ground, Noiseless CK from SkyLum/Luminar applied to the sky.
A 360° horizon-to-zenith panorama of the northern spring sky on an early May night (May 10/11, 2016) in the wee hours at about 2 am with the Milky Way rising across the east. A odd, isolated auroral arc glows to the east, adding the green and magenta arc. The green arc over the southern Milky Way may be from airglow. My house is to the right. Cassiopeia and Perseus are at left, Cygnus at left of centre, and Sagittarius at centre low on the horizon. At centre is Mars (brightest) and Saturn above Antares in Scorpius low in the south. At upper right are the spring stars of Arcturus and the Big Dipper, here distorted by the map projection. At lower right is bright Jupiter and Leo, setting into the west. The Gegenschein (a glow from cometary dust directly opposite the Sun) is faintly visible low in the sky right of centre, to the west of Mars, then three weeks before opposition. I shot this from the field next to my rural yard in southern Alberta. Lights from farms and gas plants mar the horizon and brighten the sky to the north and east, while the lights of Strathmore and Calgary light the sky to the west at right. I shot this as a test of the iOptron iPano motorized panning mount. This is a stitch of 44 segments (!), shot in 4 rows or tiers of 11 segments each, with the 35mm lens at f/2 and stock Canon 6D at ISO 4000. All segments developed in Camera Raw, then exported to TIFFs to import into PTGui software. I used the Equirectangular projection to stitch the segments. Final processing of the flattened panorama in Photoshop. The original is 32,500 x 8,100 pixels and 4 Gb.
A 360° and horizon-to-zenith panorama of the spring sky over the badlands at Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, May 25. 2016. I shot this just before moonrise of the waning gibbous Moon. Mars is the bright object right of centre, then near opposition and at its brightest. Jupiter is low at far right, setting with Leo into the west. Saturn is dimmer and just left of Mars with Mars and Saturn above Antares in Scorpius in the south. The summer Milky Way is rising across the east and into the southeast at left. The Andromeda Galaxy is just above the horizon at left of centre. The Summer Triangle stars are at centre. Arcturus is at upper right, with Spica and the stars of Corvus near the foreground hoodoo. The northern sky at left is brightened with twilight glow, despite this being taken at midnight. At this latitude of 51° north the sky never gets fully dark on late spring and early summer nights. One prominent satellite trail, interrupted by the gap between exposures of the frames it was in, is at left, plus the sky has many others! At this time of year they are well lit by the Sun even at midnight. The horizon is marked by light pollution glows from Calgary (far right) and Brooks (near centre). The display building for the Trail of the Fossil Hunters trail is at far left. This is a stitch of 44 panels, taken in 4 tiers of 11 segments each, shot with the motorized iOptron iPano mount, using its Circular mode. I used the 35mm Canon lens at f/2.8 for 30-second exposures with the Canon 6D at ISO 6400. Developed in Camera Raw, stitched with PTGui, and final processing with Photoshop CC 2015. The original is 32,500 by 8,300 pixels.
