A 360° panorama of the August night sky and Milky Way over the Great Sandhills of western Saskatchewan, from the trail at the top of Boot Hill ridge. The Galactic Centre to the south is at centre, with Mars bright to the east (left) of the Milky Way. Jupiter is just setting to the right. The Big Dipper is at far right to the northwest. The last vestiges of twilight light the horizon to the north at far left and right. Bands of green airglow invisible to the eye but obvious to the camera cross the sky from west to east, and to the east some of the airglow appears red. There is no aurora visible here. A Perseid meteor streaks toward Mars. There are also several satellites in the scene — they are impossible to avoid! A band of forest fire smoke darkens the horizon to the south. This is a stitch of 30 segments, in three tiers of 10 segments each, each frame being 30 seconds at f/2.8 with the Sigma 20mm lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400. Stitched with PTGui. Shot with the Syrp Genie Mini in its panorama mode.
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.
