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 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 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.
