A 360° panorama of the upper field of the Texas Star Party at the Prde Ranch near Fort Davis, TX, May 13, 2015, taken once the sky got astronomically dark. The panorama shows the field of telescopes and observers enjoying a night of deep-sky viewing and imaging. Venus is the bright object at right of centre and Jupiter is above it. The Zodiacal Light stretches up from the horizon and continues left across the sky in the Zodiacal Band to brighten in the east (left of centre) as the Gegeneschein. I shot this with a 14mm lens, oriented vertically, with each segment 60 seconds at f/2.8 and with the Canon 5D MkII at ISO 3200. The panorama is made of 8 segements at 45° spacings. The segments were stitched with PTGui software.
A stargazing session under the autumn Milky Way, at the City of Rocks State Park, New Mexico, at the Park Observatory in the Orion Group Camping Area, Nov 22, 2014. The Milky Way arches from horizon to horizon in this 360° panorama, from Sagittarius setting at left to Taurus rising at right. At left to the west is the last glow of twilight plus the Zodiacal Light climbing up to the left in the southwest. To the east at centre and to the south at right are some bands of green airglow. At far right is the horizon glow from the lights of Deming, NM. This is a panorama of 8 segments, at 45° spacings, shot with the 15mm full-frame fish-eye lens in portrait orientation, with each segment a 1-minute exposure at f/2.8 and ISO 3200 with the Canon 6D. Noise reduction turned on. The segments were stitched with PTGui.
A 180° panorama of the spring sky and constellations rising in the east over the Badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta on March 29, 2019. The Big Dipper is at top with its handle pointing down to Arcturus and Spica (just rising above the horizon). Leo is at right of centre, flanked by the Beehive and Coma Berenices star clusters. Polaris is at left — however, the distortion introduced by the panorama stitching at high altitudes here stretches out the sky at top and means that the Dipper’s Pointer stars do not point in a straight line to Polaris. The faint Zodiacal Band is visible at right, brightening toward the horizon in the Gegenschein. This is a stitch of 6 segments, each with the 14mm Sigma Art lens and Nikon D750 in portrait mode, each 30 seconds at f/2.8 and ISO 4000. Stitched with PTGui. I added a mild Orton glow effect with Luminar.
