The Harvest Moon of September 24, 2018 in thin clouds and above a field of hay bales in southern Alberta. This is a version converted to B&W with spot colour for the Moon and the monochrome layer backed off so some low-saturation coloour remains — just for a fun antique effect. The rows of bales run east-west and due east is at left here. The Moon came up just south of east this night, despite being only 3 days past the equinox and almost exactly Full. That was due to its position south of the ecliptic. This is a blend of three exposures using luminosity masks. to record the darker sky and ground while retaining the golden disk of the Moon. Exposures were 5 seconds. 0.5 seconds and 1/5th second, all at f/11 and ISO 400 with the Canon 6D MkII and Canon 135mm lens. A duplicate image layer with a Luminar Abandoned Places filter was blended in to add the glows to the bales and the contrast to the ground.
The Harvest Moon of September 24, 2018 in thin clouds and above a field of hay bales in southern Alberta. The rows of bales run east-west and due east is at left here down the row where I am standing. The Moon came up just south of east this night, despite being only 2 days past the equinox and almost exactly Full. That was due to its position south of the ecliptic. This is a single exposure, 1/8 second at f/11, and ISO 400 with Canon 6D MkII and 135mm lens. I applied a mild Orton “glow” effect using the Luminar plug-in. Sharpening of the foreground, noise reduction of the sky, and vignetting effect added with Blake Rudis Zone System Effects v5.
A panorama of four planets in the twilight across the twilight sky, tracing the visible ecliptic in the sky. I shot this from the Great Sandhills, Saskatchewan, on August 13, 2018. From left (southeast) to right (southwest) they are: Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, and Venus, below the waxing crescent Moon this evening. The line of planets nicely defines the arc of the ecliptic across the south, mirrored in the dark arc of blue caused by a band of smoke across the south, and the shadow of a crepuscular ray cast by the smoke, and also the blue arc of Earth’s shadow rising to the southeast near Mars. However, the arc of the ecliptic drawn by the Moon and planets isn’t perfect as the Moon was well above the ecliptic while Mars was well below the ecliptic. Venus, Jupiter and Saturn were all close to the ecliptic. Mars was just over two weeks past opposition, so it was rising in the twilight as Venus was setting, putting both above the horizon at once, with Jupiter and Saturn also well-placed to the south. However, the window of opportunity to shoot the panorama was only a few minutes long, between the time was dark enough to show faintest Saturn and before Venus set. It’s unusual to get such a line of bright planets across the sky at once. The Moon is a bonus! The location is the top of the major sand dune accessible at Great Sandhills in western Saskatchewan near Leader. This is a panorama cropped from 7 segments, each with the 35mm lens and Canon 6D MkII. Stitching was with Adobe Camera Raw. PTGui worked OK as well, but still left some slight bright banding between segments. ACR did better here.
