A 360° panorama of the observing field at the 2019 Saskatchewan Summer Star Party in the Centre Block of Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park, Saskatchewan, a Dark Sky Preserve. This was August 31, 2019 on a less than ideal night with thin cloud about, while an aurora brightening with a Kp5 level display colours the sky at right to the northeast. The Milky Way is at left to the south. The Big Dipper in haze is right of centre. This is an 11-segment panorama, each 30 seconds at f/2 with the Sigma 24mm lens and Nikon D750 in landscape orientation and at ISO 6400. Stitched with PTGui. ACR worked but did not allow framing the scene as desired.
A 360° panorama of the spring sky over the Badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, on March 29, 2019, with the winter Milky Way and constellations setting at centre, and the spring constellations filling the sky at left and right. At centre is also the tapering pyramid-shaped glow of the Zodiacal Light, which continues to the left across the sky as the Zodiacal Band and brightening at far right above the horizon as the Gegenschein. Urban sky glows from Brooks and Calgary mar the horizon with white and yellow glows. Mars is just below the Pleiades at centre in the Zodiacal Light. The panoroma projection stretches out the sky at top near the zenith, so the Big Dipper at right. is distorted. This is a panorama of 12 segments taken with the 14mm Sigma Art lens and Nikon D750 in portrait orientation, all for 30 seconds at f/2.8 and ISO 4000. Taken at 30° spacings. Stitched with PTGui. I added a mild Orton glow effect with Luminar 3 plugin.
A 360° horizon-to-zenith panorama of the northern spring sky on an early May night (May 10/11, 2016) in the wee hours at about 2 am with the Milky Way rising across the east. A odd, isolated auroral arc glows to the east, adding the green and magenta arc. The green arc over the southern Milky Way may be from airglow. My house is to the right. Cassiopeia and Perseus are at left, Cygnus at left of centre, and Sagittarius at centre low on the horizon. At centre is Mars (brightest) and Saturn above Antares in Scorpius low in the south. At upper right are the spring stars of Arcturus and the Big Dipper, here distorted by the map projection. At lower right is bright Jupiter and Leo, setting into the west. The Gegenschein (a glow from cometary dust directly opposite the Sun) is faintly visible low in the sky right of centre, to the west of Mars, then three weeks before opposition. I shot this from the field next to my rural yard in southern Alberta. Lights from farms and gas plants mar the horizon and brighten the sky to the north and east, while the lights of Strathmore and Calgary light the sky to the west at right. I shot this as a test of the iOptron iPano motorized panning mount. This is a stitch of 44 segments (!), shot in 4 rows or tiers of 11 segments each, with the 35mm lens at f/2 and stock Canon 6D at ISO 4000. All segments developed in Camera Raw, then exported to TIFFs to import into PTGui software. I used the Equirectangular projection to stitch the segments. Final processing of the flattened panorama in Photoshop. The original is 32,500 x 8,100 pixels and 4 Gb.
