Nightscapes - Alberta
The Moon and Three Planets Over Bow River with Lines and Labels
This is the line-up of planets across the southwestern sky on December 6, 2021, consisting of (L to R): Jupiter, Saturn and Venus, with the 2.5-day-old waxing crescent Moon in conjunction below Venus. The Moon had eclipsed the Sun two days before on December 4, when it was on the ecliptic. Two days later it was below the ecliptic line. Jupiter and Saturn are in Capricornus, with its stars all visible here in the evening twilight. The three planets are nicely equally spaced. Such an array makes the ecliptic line visible. The location is overlooking the Bow River, on the Buffalo Rock Road on the Siksika Nation near Blackfoot Crossing, Alberta. This is a blend of 4 exposures: 8s, 4s, 2s and 1s to retain details and colours in the brightest part of the twilight sky at right and on the Moon's disk lit with Earthshine. All were at f/2.8 and ISO 400 with the Canon RF 28-70mm lens at 33mm and red-sensitive Canon EOS Ra. Taken in "blue hour." I added a mild Orton glow with Luminar AI. The 4 images were masked initially with ADP Pro but I then painted the masked manually to eliminate most of the sky from the shorter exposures leaving just the brightest part of the sunset glow without stars, so avoid multiple star images from the untracked camera. This is the version with lines and labels added in to mark the ecliptic and constellation pattern. There is a version without the overlays.
The Moon and Three Planets Over Bow River
This is the line-up of planets across the southwestern sky on December 6, 2021, consisting of (L to R): Jupiter, Saturn and Venus, with the 2.5-day-old waxing crescent Moon in conjunction below Venus. The Moon had eclipsed the Sun two days before on December 4, when it was on the ecliptic. Two days later it was below the ecliptic line. Jupiter and Saturn are in Capricornus, with its stars all visible here in the evening twilight. The three planets are nicely equally spaced. Such an array makes the ecliptic line visible. The location is overlooking the Bow River, on the Buffalo Rock Road on the Siksika Nation near Blackfoot Crossing, Alberta. This is a blend of 4 exposures: 8s, 4s, 2s and 1s to retain details and colours in the brightest part of the twilight sky at right and on the Moon's disk lit with Earthshine. All were at f/2.8 and ISO 400 with the Canon RF 28-70mm lens at 33mm and red-sensitive Canon EOS Ra. Taken in "blue hour." I added a mild Orton glow with Luminar AI. The 4 images were masked initially with ADP Pro but I then painted the masked manually to eliminate most of the sky from the shorter exposures leaving just the brightest part of the sunset glow without stars, so avoid multiple star images from the untracked camera. There is a version with lines and labels added in to mark the ecliptic and constellation pattern.
The Last of the Summer Milky Way
A nightscape scene of the summer Milky Way setting over the Elbow River in the Kananaskis Country in southern Alberta, on a superb autumn evening, with the rising waning Moon lighting the forground and autumn trees. This is a blend of a stack of three 4-minute exposures at ISO 800 for the ground with a single 2-minute tracked exposure at ISO 1600 for the sky, all with the 15-35mm RF lens at 15mm and at f/2.8 on the Canon Ra camera. Luminosity masks and dodge & burn layers applied with TK8 Actions. ON1 No Noise AI applied to the sky. A mild Orton Glow added with Luminar AI. Taken September 26, 2021 and timed to catch the light from the rising waning Moon on the landscape. The tracker was the Star Adventurer Mini. This serves as a good example of blending tracked and untracked images when there are trees in the foreground. It's a masking challenge!
A nightscape scene of the summer Milky Way over the Elbow River and Elbow Falls in the Kananaskis Country in southern Alberta, on a superb autumn evening, with the rising waning Moon beginning to light the hills. Illumination is from starlight and moonlight. This is a blend of a single long 6-minute exposure at ISO 800 for the ground with a single short 30-second untracked exposure at ISO 6400 for the sky, all with the 15-35mm RF lens at 15mm and at f/2.8 on the Canon Ra camera. Luminosity masks and dodge & burn layers applied with TK8 Actions. ON1 No Noise AI applied to the sky. A mild Orton Glow added with Luminar AI. Taken September 26, 2021.
Harvest Moonrise at Dinosaur Park
A telescopic close-up of the full Harvest Moon rising over the Badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park on September 20, 2021. This is a single 0.8-second exposure taken as part of a time-lapse sequence, shot through a 76mm f/4.4 refractor telescope for an effective focal length of 335mm using the Canon R6 at ISO 100. Luminosity masks created with TKActions v8 applied to enhance the contrast of the foreground. A mild Orton glow added with Luminar AI.
Harvest Moonrise over the Badlands
The Harvest Full Moon rising over the Badlands landscape of Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, on September 20, 2021. This is a single 1.6-second exposure for the sky and ground, blended with a shorter exposure for the Moon's disk to present the view more as the eye saw it. Taken with the Canon EOS Ra and 24-105mm RF zoom at 80mm. Dodging and burning with TKActions and a mild Orton glow added with Luminar AI.
Jupiter and Saturn over Hoodoos
Jupiter (bright at left) and Saturn (dimmer at centre) over hoodoo formations at Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, August 29/30, 2021, with the foreground illuminated by moonlight from the rising last quarter Moon. The planets are in or near the constellation of Capricornus framed at centre. This is a blend of two images: a single tracked 1-minute exposure for the sky at f/2.8 and ISO 800 plus a single untracked 3-minute exposure for the ground at f/4 and ISO 800, both with the Canon 15-35mm RF lens at 29mm and Canon R6 camera on the Star Adventurer Mini tracker. I added a mild Orton effect with Luminar AI. Long Exposure Noise Reduction applied to the ground image in camera.
Waning Moonrise at Dinosaur Park
The waning last quarter Moon rising at Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, on August 29, 2021. Capella is at left, Perseus is at top left, and the Andromeda Galaxy is at top. The Pleiades are just above the Moon, then in Taurus. This is a blend of a stack of 2 x 4-minute untracked exposures for the ground with a single tracked 2-minute exposure for the sky, all at ISO 800 with the Canon R6, and the Canon RF 15-35mm lens at 15mm and f/2.8. The camera was on the Star Adventurer Mini tracker. A mild Orton glow effect added with Luminar AI.
Summer Stars at Fossil Hunters Trail
The summer Milky Way in the southwest with the planets Jupiter (brightest) and Saturn (centre) to the east, over the Badlands formations at the Trail of the Fossil Hunters site at Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta. The illumination of the sky and ground is from the rising last quarter Moon off frame to the east at left, adding the warm lighting naturally. Lights from the town of Brooks to the southwest adds the skyglow at right. This is a blend of tracked exposures for the sky and untracked for the ground: 2 x 2-minutes tracked for the sky at f/2.8 and ISO 1600, plus 2 x 5-minutes at f/4 and ISO 800 for the ground, all with the Canon 15-35mm RF lens on the Canon R6 camera, and on the Star Adventurer Mini tracker. Taken August 29, 2021. A mild Orton glow added with Luminar AI and some dodge/burn contrast enhancements brushed onto the foreground with TK Actions Paint Contrast action.
The Big Dipper over hoodoo formations at Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta. Arcturus is at left. Illumination of the foreground is from starlight. This is a blend of 2 x 3-minute stacked exposures for the ground at f/2.8 and ISO 800 with a single 30-second untracked exposure at f/2 and ISO 6400 for the sky, all with the 24mm Canon L lens on the Canon EOS Ra camera. A mild Orton glow added to the foreground with Luminar AI. ON1 NoNoise applied to the sky. Taken August 29, 2021.
Planets Rising in Badlands Twilight
Jupiter (brightest) and Saturn (at right) rising in the southeast in Capricornus, amid the deepening evening twilight over the Badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, on August 29, 2021. This was from the Trail of the Fossil Hunters site. This is a blend of a stack of 4 x 25-second exposures, untracked, for the ground, and a single 25-second untracked exposure for the sky, all at f/6.3 and ISO 800 with the Canon EF 24mm lens and Canon R6 camera. A mild Orton glow added with Luminar AI. LENR used on all exposures.
Perseid Meteor Shower over Dinosaur Park
A composite showing about three dozen Perseid meteors accumulated over 3 hours of time, compressed into one image showing the radiant point of the meteor shower in Perseus. This was August 12, 2021, from The Trail of the Fossil Hunters trailhead lot in Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta. A dim magenta aurora is visible to the northeast at left. Cassiopeia is at centre above the radiant point; the Andromeda Galaxy is just right of centre. Capella is rising at left. Airglow also tints the sky. This is a blend of: a single 30-second exposure for the background sky, one with the aurora at its most active, such as it was this night, with a stack of 8 x 30-second exposures for the ground to smooth noise. Then 32 x 30-second exposures for the individual meteors (a couple of frames have two meteors on them) are overlaid with Lighten blend mode onto the base sky image, each with masks to reveal just the meteors. All frames were with the Canon R6 at ISO 6400 and with the TTArtisan 11mm fish-eye lens at f/2.8. The camera was on a static tripod, not tracking the sky, so I hand-rotated all the meteor frames around Polaris at upper left, to bring them into close alignment to the base sky image, so the positions of all the meteors are close to their actual positions in the starfield when they appeared. A couple of exceptions were the meteors at bottom which appeared in Taurus, below the horizon at the time the sky image was taken, so those meteors are moved up artificially. ON1 NoNoise applied to the sky image. Ground illumination is from starlight.
Smoky Sunset at Vermilion Lakes
Sunset at Vermilion Lakes, Banff, Alberta, over Mt. Rundle reflected in the still waters, on an evening with a smoke-filled sky from B.C. forest fires. This is a single shot with the Canon EOS Ra and 15-35mm RF lens.
The Milky Way over Blakiston Creek
The galactic core area of the northern summer Milky Way over the Blakiston Valley and Blakiston Creek in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta on a July night. Sagittarius is at left over Vimy Peak, with the bright Sagittarius Starcloud over the valley, with the Messier 6 and 7 star clusters low and left of centre. Scorpius with reddish Antares is at right. The pink Lagoon Nebula, M8, is at top, and the globular cluster M22 is at upper left. The dark Pipe Nebula is at top centre. This is a blend of tracked exposures for the sky and untracked exposures for the ground: a stack of 4 x 2-minute tracked at f/2.8 and ISO 1600 for the sky, blended with a stack of 2 x 5-minute untracked at f/4 and ISO 1600 for the ground. A tracked 2-minute exposure through an Kase/Alyn Wallace Starglow filter adds the star glow effect. An additional 8-minute exposure at ISO 400 and f/8 taken early in the evening during blue hour adds some illumination to the distant mountains. However, the majority of the landscape comes from untracked exposures taken just before the tracked ones when the sky was dark, with illumination just from starlight with a more normal colour balance. Forest fire smoke moving in added some haze and lowered contrast. The bright light is the Prince of Wales Hotel, and the light to the left is from the golf course clubhouse. The sky tracker was the Star Adventurer Mini which worked perfectly. The camera was the Canon ESO Ra and lens the Canon 15-35mm RF at 35mm.
The Milky Way over Driftwood Beach
The northern summer Milky Way over Middle Waterton Lake at Driftwood Beach in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta on a July night. Sagittarius is at centre, with the pink Lagoon Nebula, M8, right of centre. The Dark Horse complex of dust lanes is over the peak at right. The Scutum Starcloud is at top centre. The bright object at far left is Jupiter, with dimmer Saturn to the right, with both over Vimy Peak and in Capricornus or thereabouts! This is a blend of tracked exposures for the sky and untracked exposures for the ground: a stack of 4 x 2-minute tracked at f/2.8 and ISO 1600 for the sky, blended with a single 8-minute untracked at f/5.6 and ISO 800 for the ground, taken with Long Exposure Noise Reduction on to eliminate most thermal hot pixels this warm night. A tracked 2-minute exposure through an Kase/Alyn Wallace Starglow filter adds the star glow effect. An additional short 30-second exposure at ISO 400 and f/4 is for the lights of the Prince of Wales Hotel and their reflections, to preevent them from overexposing too much which they would in the long ground exposure. Forest fire smoke moving in added some haze and lowered contrast. The sky tracker was the Star Adventurer Mini which worked perfectly. The camera was the Canon ESO Ra and lens the Canon 15-35mm RF at 15mm.
The Milky Way over Upper Waterton Lake
The summer Milky Way and galactic core region over Upper Waterton Lake and Waterton Townsite on a July evening. This was from the famous viewpoint of the Prince of Wales Hotel, looking south with Sagittarius and the Galactic Centre positioned over the lake. Scorpius is at right with reddish Antares. The M6 and M7 star clusters are low over the lake. The pinkish Lagoon Nebula, M8, is left of centre, with the M24 Small Sagittarius Starcloud above. Some forest fire smoke dampened the contrast and transparency this night. This is a blend of tracked exposures for the sky and untracked exposures for the ground: a stack of 4 x 2-minute tracked at ISO 1600 and f/2.8 for the sky and a stack of 3 x 4-minute untracked at ISO 800 and f/4 for the ground. LENR noise reduction applied in-camera to the ground images to reduce thermal speckling on this warm night. An additional short 30-second exposure at ISO 400 and f/5.6 masked in is for the town lights to subdue their brightness, though the result does better resemble the naked eye view, as the lighting has been reduced and shielded recently to make it much less glaring than before. An additional 2-minute tracked exposure at the end of the sequence taken through a Kase/Alyn Wallace Starglow filter blended in add the star glows! The tracker was the Star Adventurer Mini which worked perfectly and consistently. The camera was the Canon EOS Ra with the 15-35mm RF lens at 24mm.
Summer Milky Way at Dinosaur Park
The summer Milky Way and galactic core region over the formations at Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, July 9, 2021, on a warm moonless night. This is a blend of 4 tracked exposures (2 to 3 minutes each) at f/2.8 for the sky and 3 untracked exposures (4 to 8 minutes) at f/5.6 for the foreground. An additional tracked exposure through a Kase/Alyn Wallace Starglow filter adds some subtle glows to the bright stars. Two of the sky exposures were shot through a Kase Natural Night filter as a test, but it didn't make a big difference over the unfiltered images. All with the Canon Ra at ISO 1600 to 3200, and on the Star Adventurer 2i tracker, and with the Canon 15-35mm RF lens. No artificial lighting was employed here. Smoke from BC forest fires spoiled the transparency and contrast in the sky.
Circumpolar Star Trails with Noctilucent Clouds
An extensive display of noctilucent clouds blended with a star trail sequence of the circumpolar stars of the northern sky. This is a stack of thirty 30-second exposures taken at the end of a sequence of 450 shots, taken when the sky was darkest with the most stars visible, blended with a shorter exposure taken earlier in the night when the noctilucent clouds were more extensive across the twilight sky. So this is a "time-blend" of frames taken from a set shot for a time-lapse. All with the TTArtisan 11mm full-frame fish-eye lens at f/2.8 and on the Canon R6.
The Rising Strawberry Moon of June 2021 with Clouds
The Full Moon of June 24, 2021, colloquially called the "Strawberry Moon," rising over the wind-rippled water of McGregor Lake in southern Alberta. The Moon is casting a prominent "glitter path" across the water, with clouds moving in above. This is an exposure blend of two images: a long one for the sky and water, and a short one for the disk of the Moon, to prevent it from being an overexposed white disk. The eye can take in this type of scene but the cameras of today, as good as they are, still cannot record the full dynamic range in brightness of such a scene in one exposure. This was with the Canon EOS Ra and 24-105mm RF zoom lens at 105mm.
The Rising Strawberry Moon of June 2021
The Full Moon of June 24, 2021, colloquially called the "Strawberry Moon," rising over the wind-rippled water of McGregor Lake in southern Alberta. The Moon is casting a prominent "glitter path" across the water. This is an exposure blend of two images: a long one for the sky and water, and a short one for the disk of the Moon, to prevent it from being an overexposed white disk. The eye can take in this type of scene but the cameras of today, as good as they are, still cannot record the full dynamic range in brightness of such a scene in one exposure. This was with the Canon EOS Ra and 200mm L lens.
Glitter Path of the Strawberry Moon
The Full Moon of June 24, 2021, colloquially called the "Strawberry Moon," rising over the wind-rippled water of McGregor Lake in southern Alberta. The Moon is casting a prominent "glitter path" across the water. This is an exposure blend of two images: a long one for the sky and water, and a short one for the disk of the Moon, to prevent it from being an overexposed white disk. The eye can take in this type of scene but the cameras of today, as good as they are, still cannot record the full dynamic range in brightness of such a scene in one exposure. This was with the Canon EOS Ra, and 200mm L lens and 1.4x Extender for 280mm focal length.
The Rising Strawberry Moon on the Horizon
The Full Moon of June 24, 2021, colloquially called the "Strawberry Moon," just rising over the distant hill at McGregor Lake in southern Alberta. The disk of the Moon is flattened by atmospheric refraction and tinted golden from atmospheric absorption, as is the case for all rising and setting Moons, and Suns. This is an exposure blend of two images: a long one for the sky and water, and a shorter one for the disk of the Moon, to prevent it from being overexposed. This was with the Canon EOS Ra and 200mm L lens and 1.4x Extender for 280mm focal length.
Milky Way over Icy Cameron Lake
The Milky Way, with the starclouds of the galactic core in Sagittarius at left and the head of Scorpius at right, over a still ice-covered Cameron Lake, a high altitude alpine lake in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada. This was on a very clear night on June 2, 2021. The Lagoon Nebula, M8, and M24 Small Sagittarius Starcloud are prominent at left. Antares and the Rho Ophiuchi dark lanes are at right just over the mountain ridge, with the tracked shots timed to catch Antares before it set behind the peak. The Galactic "Dark Horse" is at centre, with this area of sky about as high as it would get for the night — this is right on the Canada-US border at 49° N. The landscape is lit only by starlight and residual airglow. Cameron Lake is in the extreme southwest corner of Alberta and is certainly one of the darkest places in Canada. Waterton Lakes is a Dark Sky Preserve. The slope at left is scarred from the 2017 Kenow Fire. This is a blend of tracked and untracked exposures: a stack of 2 x 8-minute untracked shots at ISO 400 for the ground, and a stack of 4 x 2-minute tracked shots at ISO 1600 for the sky. All were with the 35mm Canon L-series EF lens at f/2.8 and Canon Ra camera. The tracker was the little MSM Move-Shoot-Move Rotator, polar aligned with the laser. The ground shots were taken immediately after the tracked sky shots. Stacked, masked and blended in Photoshop.
A "deepscape" image of the head of Scorpius with the colourful Rho Ophiuchi nebula complex culminating over the icy peak of Mount Custer in Montana, as taken from the north shore of Cameron Lake in Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, Canada. Antares is the yellow star, with the globular cluster Messier 4 just to the right. The mountain is lit only by starlight. This is from latitude 49° N so this area of sky is low in the south and just clears this mountain even with Scorpius at its highest, which it was here. This is a blend of tracked and untracked exposures: 4 x 1-minute tracked at ISO 3200 for the sky plus a single 4-minute untracked exposure at ISO 800 for the ground, all with the Samyang 85mm AF lens at f/2.8 on the Canon Ra camera, and on the Move-Shoot-Move MSM tracker, polar aligned with the laser. Out of the 8 tracked shots I took for the set, half were unacceptably trailed. Taken on a very clear night June 2, 2021 with the tracked shots taken after the untracked image. That's a mistake with the MSM as it can take 2 or 3 minutes for the gears to re-engage and start tracking, wasting those shots and valuable time.