The Big Dipper, at left, and Little Dipper with Polaris, centre, over the Hoodoos on Highway 10 along the Red Deer River near Drumheller, Alberta, July 24, 2016. A faint purple aurora lights the sky at upper left, while clouds lit by farm and urban lights provide the unfortunate but in this case complementary coloured yellow sky glow. A nearby farm light illuminates the foreground hoodoo. The waning Moon was just coming up and beginning to light the sky blue as well. This is a 2-panel panorama, vertically, to take in more of the sky and ground than possible with a single image, even with the 20mm lens used here. The sky is a 30-second exposure at f/2.2 while the ground is a stack of 3 x 2-minute exposures at f/4.5 for more depth of field. All with the Nikon D750 at ISO 3200. No tracking here.
The Milky Way in Sagittarius and Scorpius, low in the south, over Mt. Rundle in Banff, Alberta, from the shore of Two Jack Lake, June 3, 2016. Saturn is the bright object at upper right, then in Ophiuchus just above Scorpius. Some thin cloud fuzzed the images of Saturn and stars. The foreground is partly illuminated by car headlights, to light up the green landscape. Wind made the water rough and unreflective. This is a stack of 4 x 25 second exposures (mean combined to smooth noise) for the ground and a single 25-second exposure for the sky, untracked but with just slight trailing. All at f/2.2 with the 35mm lens and Canon 6D at ISO 3200. Shot as part of a 280-frame time-lapse and star trail sequence, though that was partly ruined by the car headlights. Here they help somewhat.
Mars, the bright object at right, with Saturn to the left and Antares below Saturn, in Scorpius, all above Mt. Rundle, with the Milky Way at left. The area of the galactic centre in Sagittarius is just above the horizon. Note the glitter path on the water from Mars! It was then just past closest approach and so near its maximum brightness. This is from the shore of Two Jack Lake in Banff, Alberta. Lights from Banff and Canmore light the mountain and clouds. I shot this June 3, 2016, so the sky was not completely dark, with the northern still lit by perpetual twilight. Light cloud fuzzed the images of the planets and stars near the southern horizon, enlarging their images. This is a stack of 4 x 20-second exposures (mean combined to smooth noise) for the ground and a single 20-second exposure, untracked, for the sky. All with the 24mm Sigma Art lens at f/2 and Nikon D750 at ISO 3200.
