Orion and the winter stars over the badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park, in southern Alberta, on a very clear (and rare!) clear night, February 28, 2017. Recent warm weather got rid of most of the snow. So the foreground doesn’t look too wintery! Orion is at centre, Canis Major (with Sirius) below left, and Taurus (with Aldebaran) at upper right. The Milky Way runs down to the south. The clusters M41, M46 and M47 are visible and the Orion Nebula, M42. This is a stack of 8 x 30-second exposures for the ground, mean combined to smooth noise, plus one 30-second exposure for the sky. All at f/2.2 with the Sigma 20mm Art lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400.
Orion and the Dog Stars (Procyon and Sirius) rising over frozen Lake MacGregor in southern Alberta, on February 2, 2017, on a clear moonlit night, with a 6-day Moon lighting the scene. Note the glitter path reflection of Sirius in the ice. The last of the evening twilight lights the horizon at right. This is with the Sigma 20mm Art lens and Nikon D750.
