The Milky Way arching over Emerald Lake and Emerald Lake Lodge in Yoho National Park, BC. This was on June 6, 2016 and despite it being about 1:30 am, the sky, especially to the north at left, is still lit by blue twilight from the short solstice night. Unfortunately, the lights from the Lodge, in particular one bright unshielded sodium vapour light, illuminates the foreground and even across the lake. The lights are themselves not overly bright but the long exposures in such images really brings out how much they do light the night landscape. They should be shielded or reduced in number, or put on motion sensors to light only when necessary. Or all of the above! The Summer Triangle stars are at centre top. High haze fuzzes the star images. Vega is the brightest star at upper right. Mt. Burgess, home to the famous Burgess Shale Cambrian explosion fossils, is at centre. My other camera is at left, on a tripod, shooting a time-lapse sequence. I could have cloned it out but decided to leave it in. This is a panorama over about 180°, made of 24 segments but cropped in quite a bit from the original, and all shot on the iPano panning unit. Each exposure was 30 seconds at f/2.2 with the Sigma 24mm lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 4000. One short exposure of the lodge was blended in to reduce its light glare. Stitched in PTGui. The original is 15,000 x 9,000 pixels.
The arch of the Milky Way over the Red Deer River valley and badlands at Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park, Alberta, on May 19/20, 2018 just after moonset of the waxing crescent Moon. The park is the site of an ancient buffalo jump, where Cree native people drove bison over the cliffs in large numbers to provide for their tribes. The hills also contain unique flora and fauna that are not found this far east of the Rocky Mountains in as large numbers as at Dry Island. The park contains the most important Albertosaurus bone bed in the world, which was first discovered by Barnum Brown in 1910 and rediscovered by Dr. Phil Currie in 1997. Jupiter is the brightest object, shining above the Red Deer River at right to the southwest. A faint aurora is on the northern horizon at left, while faint bands of airglow colour the sky. The glow of Calgary is at right of centre to the southwest, while sky glows from Red Deer and Edmonton light the horizon at far left and far right. My other camera shooting a time-lapse is at far right. This is a 360° panorama made of 3 tiers of 7 segments each to cover the scene from well below the horizon to the zenith. All exposures 30 seconds at f/2 with the 20mm Sigma Art lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400. I used the Syrp Genie Mini to automate the azimuth motion and shutter firing from segment to segment.
The summer Milky Way over a ripending canola field, July 6, 2013, from home in southern Alberta. This is a stitch of 8 x 60 second exposures with the Canon 5D MkII at ISO 4000 and Sigma 8mm lens at f/3.5. Colour and contrast have been boosted a lot, and shadow detail brought out a lot in the foreground.
