A "deepscape" of the rich galactic core region of the Milky Way, here shining over Sofa Mountain in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta on an early June night. This version has labels identifying the main deep sky objects in the field, including all the many Messier objects in the area. The lower part of the Galactic Dark Horse, called the Pipe Nebula, B78, is at right. The Large Sagittarius Starcloud is at lower centre over the mountain ridge, and very yellow because of interstellar dust absorption; the whiter Small Sagittarius Starcloud (aka M24) is at top, flanked by the large star clusters M23 at right and M25 at left. The pink Lagoon Nebula, aka M8, is at centre, with the bluish Trifid Nebula, M20, above. The globular star cluster M22 is at lower left. I shot this on a very clear night, June 1, 2021, from the Maskinonge Pond area. This is a blend of a tracked and untracked exposures: a stack of 4 x 1-minute tracked exposures at ISO 3200 with the MSM Move Shoot Move tracker, with a single 8-minute untracked exposure with the MSM motor off and at ISO 400, all with the 85mm Samyang AF lens at f/2.8 and Canon EOS Ra. The untracked shot was taken immediately after the tracked shots from the same position, though the camera was re-leveled to frame the mountain. The sky really was at this altitude just above the mountain, as this was from latitude 49° N. Blended, masked and stacked with Photoshop.
The region of Scorpius and Ophiuchus filled with dusty dark nebulas and colourful reflection nebulas, here in a "deepscape" over Sofa Mountain in Waterton Lakes National Park. The yellow star at right in Antares with the Rho Ophiuchi reflection nebulas nearby. At left is the Galactic Dark Horse that includes the Pipe Nebula at bottom. This area of sky was rising at the time, with some green tinting from airglow. I shot this on June 1, 2021 from the Maskinonge Pond area. This is a blend of tracked and untracked exposures: a stack of 2 x 1-minute tracked exposures at ISO 3200 for the sky, blended with 2 x 8-minute untracked exposures at ISO 400 for the ground, all at f/2.8 with the Samyang 85mm AF lens and Canon EOS Ra camera. The tracker was the Move-Shoot-Move MSM tracker which mistracked for many of the exposures, giving only 2 out of 16 or so that were tracked properly and not trailed. Using the MSM required a lot of wasted time and unusable exposures.
