A 360° panorama demonstrating the natural polarization of the sky in a band 90° away from the Sun. Here, the band stretches from top to bottom vertically across the sky, with the rising morning Sun in the east at left. The waning last quarter Moon is also 90° from the Sun at lower centre to the south. The Moon disk is enlarged 3x as per planetarium standards to make it more visible in the 360° sky. North is at the top. Taken from home July 16, 2017, using the 12mm Rokinon lens for a panorama of 8 segments, stitched with PTGui.
Quarter Moon, April 1993 Taken from Las Campanas Observatory, Chile. Using 24-inch f/16 Helen Sawyer Hogg Telescope (formerly owned by University of Toronto) at Cassegrain focus, with focal reducer for effective f/11. This image is a mosaic of four 35mm images, taken scanning down the disk of the Moon and stitched together in Photoshop. Each 35mm slide scanned at 4000 dpi and full resolution retained for this mosaic. Black sky added to expand area around the Moon for more "breathing" room and for page layout. Some horizontal seams barely visble -- where images overlap there is less grain and a a smoother background than where image is made of one frame. Film: Ektachrome 100 slide film, exposure not recorded. Seeing superb as always at Las Campanas. Smart Sharpen, Reduce Noise and Shadows/Highlights with Mid-Tone Contrast boost applied to flattened version.
A 360° night panorama, lit by moonlight, taken from the boardwalk out to Pryamid Island on Pyramid Lake in Jasper National Park. Contructed in the 1930s, the Boardwalk takes you to a popular picnic spot, Pyramid Island at the north end of Pyramid Lake. The view across the water to the surrounding mountains is wonderful by day and by night. By night, this is a fabulous place for stargazing in this Dark Sky Preserve. Here, south is at left, toward Mt. Edith Cavell. To the southwest, the waxing gibbous Moon is setting. At right of centre, the Boardwalk leads to Pyramid Island itself, with Pyramid Mountain behind it. Right of the island is the Big Dipper. To the right of the image, to the northeast, there’s a weak aurora display. The Milky Way is faintly visible in the moonlit sky overhead. This an 8-segement panorama, taken with the 15mm full-frame fisheye lens and Canon 6D. Each segment was a 32-second exposure at f/2.8 and ISO 1250, stitched with PTGui.
