The Milky Way, often described in mythologies as a river in the sky, shines over the Bow River in Banff National Park on a very clear night in early June. The viewpoint is the famous Morant’s Curve on the Bow Valley Parkway, overlooking the Bow, the CPR rail line following the river, and the peaks of the Continental Divide, including Mt. Temple at right near Lake Louise. The location is named for Nicolas Morant who photographed trains in the Rockies using large format cameras from here when under the employ of the CPR. Mars is the bright object at centre, west of Scorpius with Antares and Saturn, then to the east, the star clouds of the galactic centre region of the Milky Way above the southern horizon, in Sagittarius. The Milky Way extends up into Scutum, Serpens, and Aquila. The sky is not black but a deep blue from the perpetual twilight in the sky in early June (this was June 4, 2016) at this latitude. Some green airglow also discolours the sky. Several satellite trails are in the sky as well. This is a stitch of 9 panels to form a partial panorama, looking south and west, each exposure being 20 seconds at f/2.5 with the 24mm Sigma Art lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 5000. Shot with the iPano panning unit and stitched with PTGui.
Dinosaur Park in Alberta, at moonrise on May 26, 2013, with a weak aurora to the north. Lighting is from the rising nearly Full Moon off frame to the right and twilight to the left. A stack of 100 frames from a 370-frame time-lapse, each frame at 20 seconds at f/4 with the Canon 10-22mm lens at 10mm and Canon 60Da at ISO 1250. Combined in Long Streak mode with StarCircleAcademy Advanced Star Trails
Circumpolar Star Trails -- Pentax 6x7 camera with 35mm full-frame fish-eye lens at f/5.6. Fujichrome 100F slide film and 2 hour exposure. Taken from home in July 2004. Aurora adds sky color.