This is a 160°-wide panorama of the Milky Way arching over the late Cretaceous Badlands formations at Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, taken on a moonlit night in May, juxtaposing the dramatic earth tones with the bluish sky above. The waxing crescent Moon is low and off frame at left and is providing the warm illumination. Capella is the bright star at far left. The Summer Triangle stars are right of centre, with bright Vega at top. Cassiopeia and Perseus are at left; Cygnus is at centre. Haze in the sky adds the natural star glows but also mutes the contrast in the Milky Way and adds the horizon glows. However, a weak aurora adds a green and magenta glow to the northern horizon at centre. This is a blend of a 6-segment panorama framed for the sky, with a matching 6-segment panorama framed for the ground, layered, masked and blended in Photoshop. Segments were spaced 30° apart with the camera in landscape orientation. The sky segments are untracked, each 20 seconds at f/2.8 with the Sigma 24mm Art lens. The ground segments are each 30 seconds also at f/2.8. All were with the Canon R6 at ISO 3200. I should have used 1 to 2 minutes each for the ground panorama, shot at a lower ISO, but it was late! Stitching was with Adobe Camera Raw. I applied a Dynamic Contrast filter to the ground using ON1 Effects, and a mild Orton glow effect using Luminar AI. Shot May 16, 2021.
The northern summer Milky Way rising on a spring night at Dinosaur Provincal Park, Alberta. This is a 180° panorama from northwest, at left, where the waxing crescent Moon is setting, over to southeast, at right, where Scorpius and the galactic centre is rising. The Summer Triangle stars are at centre; Cassiopeia is left of centre; Auriga and Gemini are setting at far left amid the glow of the setting Moon. The sky was hazy, adding the natural star glows, horizon clouds and tints. No light pollution or starglow filter was employed. This was May 15/16, 2021 about 1 am. This is a blend of tracked exposures for the sky and untracked exposures for the ground. The sky is a stitch of 9 segments at 30° spacings, each 1 minute at ISO 1600 with the original Canon 24mm L lens at f/2. The camera was in portrait orientation. The ground is a stitch of 18 segments at 15° spacings and taken after the sky segments with the tracker motor off, each ground segment 2 minutes at ISO 3200 with the lens at f/4 for more depth of field. Both passes were single row panoramas, with the camera unchanged in altitude. All with the Canon EOS Ra camera on the Move-Shoot-Move (MSM) rotator/tracker with the Alyn Wallace Z Plate to allow the camera to pan horizontally on the level, despite the tracker being tipped over polar aligned. All stitching was with Adobe Camera Raw, to create two panoramas, which were then layered, masked (using Select Sky) and blended in Photoshop. A mild Orton glow effect added with Luminar AI. I have left some satellites in.
A 360° panorama of the late winter and early spring sky with an arc of aurora, from a latitude of 51° N. This was March 13, 2021, from home in southern Alberta. This night there was a bright aurora across the northern sky, so I have oriented the view to place due north just right of centre. The Big Dipper is at right; Leo is rising at far right. The bright winter stars around Orion are at far left to the south. High clouds and haze, partly lit by light pollution here, add the natural glows to the stars, emphasizing the bright stars and constellation patterns. No filter was used here. The yellow arch at left is a band of cloud illuminated by light pollution. This was a test of new panorama gear, using an Acratech Pan Head on top of a Alyn Wallace/MSM Z-Plate mounted to a Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer 2i tracker, to allow taking tracked segments for the panorama, to prevent star trailing. The Z-Plate allowed the Pan Head to mount and move horizontally and vertically in azimuth and altitude despite being on a polar aligned tracker. It worked! The ground is a stitch of 8 segments shot with the tracker motor off, then blended with a stitch of 20 segments for the sky, in 3 tiers of 8 + 6 + 6 segments, all with the Sigma 24mm lens at f/2.8 and for 1-minute with the Nikon D750 at ISO 1600 for all shots. Stitched with PTGui v12 which at last saves camera metadata when exporting PSD files. The original is 25,600 pixels wide.
