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Scenics { 1072 images } Created 19 Feb 2011

A gallery of nighttime landscapes scenes, with short exposures to prevent the stars from trailing, and often illuminated with moonlight. These are presented in chronological order, with the newest images first or at top.

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Winter Sky Setting Over Bay of Fundy...jpg
Orion in Evening Twilight over Bay o...jpg
Winter Sky Setting at Cape Enrage.jpg
Moon in Twilight at Cape Enrage.jpg
Selfie at Lunar Eclipse (March 14, 2...jpg
Total Lunar Eclipse over Waterton La...jpg
Comet over Dino Park #2 (Oct 23, 202...jpg
Comet over Dino Park #1 (Oct 23, 202...jpg
Comet Over Moonlit Red Rocks Close-U...jpg
Comet Over Moonlit Red Rocks (Oct 15...jpg
Comet over Arches National Park Pano...jpg
Comet C2023 A3 Over Turret Arch (Oct...jpg
Night of the Comet Panorama at Arche...jpg
Comet Rise Over Monument Valley (Sep...jpg
Comet Rise Over Bryce Canyon (Sept 2...jpg
Winter Milky Way over Bryce Canyon.jpg
$This is the northern winter sky and Milky Way over Bryce Canyon National Park, with the waning crescent Moon in frame lighting the sky and landscape below. The site was the Fairyland Canyon viewpoint, on the morning of September 27, 2024. It is a vertical panorama — a "vertorama." Orion is right of centre, with the bright star Sirius in Canis Major below. Left of centre is Gemini, with red Mars in it. The bright object above centre is Jupiter, in Taurus, with the Pleiades at top. Auriga is at top left. Many star clusters and a few pale reddish nebulas show up along the Milky Way. The sky is blue from the moonlight, but also has some bands of colored airglow at bottom. Technical: This is a vertical panorama of three segments: two for the sky, each a stack of 4 x 1-minute exposures, and one segment for the ground which is a stack of 2 x 2-minute exposures. All with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at 15mm and f/2.8, with the Canon R5 at ISO 1600 for the sky and ISO 800 for the ground. The camera was in landscape orientation. The sky segments were tracked on the MSM Nomad tracker. The tracker motor was off for the ground images. For the sky images the lens had an URTH broadband light pollution Night filter, to increase contrast in the moonlight. Sky segments stitched in PTGui with transverse equirectangular projection which produced the least distortion and flat horizon. Sky and ground elements blended in Photoshop. Star diffraction spikes added for artistic effect with AstronomyTools actions. Mild glow effects added with Nik Color EFX and Luminar Neo through luminosity masks. The original is 10,600 by 7,500 pixels.$

Moonlit Winter Sky over Bryce Canyon.jpg
Shooting at Red Rock Coulee.jpg
Aurora and Irrigation Boom (July 29,...jpg
Smoky Full Moon - July 20, 2024 (70-...jpg
Milky Way and Meteor over Howse Pass...jpg
Space Station over Waterfowl Lake.jpg
Big Dipper & Arcturus over Water...jpg
Moonset over Waterfowl Lake (28-70mm...jpg
Waxing Moon Over Mistaya Valley (28-...jpg
Evening Moon over Saskatchewan River...jpg
Big Dipper & Arcturus over Hilda...jpg
Autumn Constellations over Cirrus Mo...jpg
Stars Over Icefields Parkway Panoram...jpg
Moonset over Stutfield Glacier (28-7...jpg
Waxing Moon over Stutfield Glacier (...jpg
Andromeda Rising over Takakkaw Falls...jpg
Milky Way over Red Chairs at Takakka...jpg
Milky Way over Takakkaw Falls (16mm ...jpg
Milky Way over Takakkaw Falls in Moo...jpg
Milky Way over Dino Park Badlands (J...jpg
Milky Way over Mt Blakiston.jpg
Big Dipper and Arcturus over Anderso...jpg
Stars and Flowers at Pass Creek.jpg
Twilight Flowers at Pass Creek (Poor...jpg
Mountain Flowers with Twilight Moon.jpg
Sunset Panorama at Writing-on-Stone ...jpg
Galactic Core at Dinosaur Park (RF15...jpg
Milky Way Arch over Dinosaur Park.jpg
Backyard Milky Way with Selfie (May ...jpg
Orion Over Bow River (April 19, 2024...jpg
Moonrise over Red Deer River.jpg
Moonrise over Red Deer River (May 5,...jpg
Dark Emu Rising (TT11mm RMod).jpg
Galaxy Rise (TT11mm RMod).jpg
2023 Annular Eclipse Over Bryce Cany...jpg
Milky Way over Inspiration Point, Br...jpg
Milky Way over Sunset Point, Bryce C...jpg
Night Sky over Bryce Canyon Panorama.jpg
Bryce Canyon Twilight.jpg
Sunset at Sunset Point, Bryce Canyon.jpg
Aurora Glow at the Hoodoos.jpg
Sunset over Harvested Field.jpg
Moon and Harvester (Sept 2, 2023).jpg
Perseids Panorama from Dino Park (Au...jpg
Stars over Castle Mountain (June 6, ...jpg
$The planets Venus (brightest at centre) and Mars (upper left of Venus) in the late evening twilight over the Rocky Mountains and Bow River in Banff National Park. This was June 6, 2023, from the Storm Mountain viewpoint on the Bow Valley Parkway north of Castle Junction. The stars Castor and Pollux in Gemini are at right. Mars is just to the left of the Beehive star cluster, M44,, just showing up here. The tracks are the Canadian Pacific Railway line, heading off toward Kicking Horse Pass over the Continental Divide. This is a blend of 5 exposures, from 30 seconds at ISO 400 for the dark ground to 5 seconds at ISO 200 for the bright sky, taken in quick succession, all with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at f/4 and Canon R5. Blended with Select Sky and manually painted masks. Location and timing planned with The Photographer's Ephemeris and TPE3D apps. Diffraction spikes added for artistic effect with AstronomyTools actions.$

Venus over Bow River (June 6, 2023).jpg
Night Train at Storm Mountain (June ...jpg
Hoodoos by Starlight (June 5, 2023).jpg
Blakiston Valley by Moonlight (May 2...jpg
Wildflowers in the Wind and Moonligh...jpg
Moon Over Blakiston Valley (May 29, ...jpg
Venus over Blakiston Creek (May 29, ...jpg
Venus over Lundbreck Falls.jpg
Sunset at Lundbreck Falls.jpg
Sierra Cabin under Stars.jpg
$Orion and Sirius over the moonlit badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta on Feb. 4, 2023 with the waxing gibbous Moon providing the illumination on this very clear and mild night. This is a blend of two 30-second exposures: one untracked for the ground and one tracked for the sky, both with the RF28-70mm lens at f/4 and Canon R5 at ISO 200, on the Star Adventurer tracker. A mild Orton glow added with Luminar Neo and star diffraction spikes added with AstronomyTools actions. It was a perfect winter night, with the temperature only at 0° C and no wind.$

Orion over Moonlit Badlands (28mm R5...jpg
$The sparkling winter stars and constellations over the moonlit badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta on Feb. 4, 2023. The waxing gibbous Moon is off frame at left providing the illumination on this very clear and mild night. Captured here in a vertical panorama from below the horizon to past the zenith. Orion is below centre, with his Belt pointing down to Sirius and up to Aldebaran. Above reddish Aldebaran is Mars, as it was on Feb 4, 2023. Above Mars is the blue Pleiades cluster. At top left is the bright star Capella in Auriga. Just above Capella is the tiny cyan-coloured fuzzy spot that is Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), again where it was this night as it was heading southward into Auriga and Taurus, after its closest approach to Earth 3 days earlier. It was nearly overhead this night and an easy sighting in binoculars. I could not frame Castor and Pollux in Gemini as the Moon was too close to that area. A better night for Moon position and lighting geometry would have been a week later with the rising waning Moon, but the clouds did not allow that. I took this night and made the best of it! This is a blend of seven 30-second exposures: one untracked for the ground and a stitch of 6 tracked for the sky, all with the RF28-70mm lens at f/4 and Canon R5 at ISO 200, on the Star Adventurer tracker. The camera was oriented in landscape format and moved upward in increments of 15° per segment. The panorama segments had to be stitched with PTGui, but even then with difficulty as it required adding a lot of manual alignment points for it to successfully stitch all segments. I used the Transverse Cylindrical projection to retain the straight horizon and rectangular image format. A mild Orton glow added with Luminar Neo and star diffraction spikes added with AstronomyTools actions for a "sparkling" effect. It was a perfect winter night, with the temperature only at 0° C and no wind. It was just me there that night, me and the howling coyotes echoing across the vall$

Winter Sky over Badlands Panorama (2...jpg
$The sparkling winter stars and constellations over the moonlit badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta on Feb. 4, 2023. The waxing gibbous Moon is off frame at left providing the illumination on this very clear and mild night. Captured here in a vertical panorama from below the horizon to past the zenith. Orion is below centre, with his Belt pointing down to Sirius and up to Aldebaran. Above reddish Aldebaran is Mars, as it was on Feb 4, 2023. Above Mars is the blue Pleiades cluster. At top left is the bright star Capella in Auriga. Just above Capella is the tiny cyan-coloured fuzzy spot that is Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), again where it was this night as it was heading southward into Auriga and Taurus, after its closest approach to Earth 3 days earlier. It was nearly overhead this night and an easy sighting in binoculars. I could not frame Castor and Pollux in Gemini as the Moon was too close to that area. A better night for Moon position and lighting geometry would have been a week later with the rising waning Moon, but the clouds did not allow that. I took this night and made the best of it! This is a blend of seven 30-second exposures: one untracked for the ground and a stitch of 6 tracked for the sky, all with the RF28-70mm lens at f/4 and Canon R5 at ISO 200, on the Star Adventurer tracker. The camera was oriented in landscape format and moved upward in increments of 15° per segment. The panorama segments had to be stitched with PTGui, but even then with difficulty as it required adding a lot of manual alignment points for it to successfully stitch all segments. I used the Transverse Cylindrical projection to retain the straight horizon and rectangular image format. A mild Orton glow added with Luminar Neo and star diffraction spikes added with AstronomyTools actions for a "sparkling" effect. It was a perfect winter night, with the temperature only at 0° C and no wind. It was just me there that night, me and the howling coyotes echoing across the vall$

Winter Sky over Badlands Panorama wi...jpg
Winter Moonrise over Badlands (R5 10...jpg
$The rising Full "Wolf" Moon of January 6, 2023 over the Badlands of Horseshoe Canyon, near Drumheller, Alberta. The sequence demonstrates the changes in colour of the rising Moon from atmospheric absorption, and changes in its shape from atmospheric refraction. This night the Moon was full almost at the same time as it rose from my location. However, the Moon's high northerly declination — it was about 4° north of the ecliptic — meant that it rose far to the northeast and some 30 minutes before the Sun set, despite the Moon being opposite the Sun. As such, even for the last shot, with the Moon several Moon diameters in altitude, the Sun was still up and lighting the landscape. In fact, at that time the Sun broke through clouds in the southwest to light the foreground with warm light. In this blend, the ground and majority of the sky comes from the final image with the highest Moon and warmest landscape lighting. For the earlier shots the Moon came up in a very bright sky. And so, to better represent the scene, some of the sky coloration — the magentas and cyans — comes from earlier exposures blended in with broad-brush masks. Dark anti-crepuscular rays also added subtle sky colouration and bands of darker blue. This is a sequence of 9 images at an interval of 2.5 minutes, extracted from a set of 80 frames taken every 15 seconds with the camera on automatic exposure, as the sky and ground remained bright enough for an accurate meter reading. The first 8 Moons are masked and layered in with a Lighten blend mode. All images were the Canon R5 at ISO 125 and Canon RF100-400mm lens at 281mm and f/8. Most processing in Adobe Camera Raw with ground and sky masks. Glow and dynamic contrast filters added with ON1 Effects plug-in.$

Winter Moonrise Sequence (R5 RF100-4...jpg
Winter Moonrise in Crepuscular Rays ...jpg
Planets over Sierra Cabin in Twiligh...jpg
Sierra Cabin in Twilight (May 27, 20...jpg
$The red planet Mars in the winter sky lit by the waxing gibbous Moon, off frame at right. Mars is at centre, and nearly at its brightest for the year with it 4 days before its December 2022 opposition. It appears in Taurus, east of the Hyades and below the Pleiades, and above Orion. Sirius is rising at bottom just above the horizon. Procyon and Canis Minor is at lower left, with Castor and Pollux in Gemini above. At upper left is Capella in Auriga. The stars of Perseus at at top. Taken from home in Alberta, December 3, 2022, with the old rake as a foreground object. This is a stack of 4 images for the ground to reduce noise blended with one exposure for the sky, all 13 seconds at f/4 with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at 16mm, on the Canon R5 at ISO 800. All untracked on a fixed tripod. Diffraction spikes added for artistic effect with Astronomy Tools actions.$

Mars in the Winter Sky (Dec 3, 2022).jpg
Lake Louise by Night.jpg
Milky Way Over Lake Louise.jpg
Autumn Stars Rising at Lake Edith.jpg
$The constellation of Ursa Major, the Great Bear, and the asterism of the Big Dipper low in the north over Lake Edith in Jasper National Park, on a clear autumn night. Arcturus is at left setting over Pyramid Mountain. Bands of airglow tint the sky, but also unfortunately, so does light pollution from the Park's service areas to the north of the townsite. This is a blend of a single tracked 2-minute exposure for the sky and water with the reflected stars, with a single untracked 4-minute exposure for the rest of the ground, both at f/2.8 with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at 17mm and Canon R5 at ISO 800. I shot this October 16, 2022. The tracker was the Star Adventurer Mini. A mild Orton glow effect added with Luminar Neo. Diffraction spikes on stars added with Astronomy Tools actions.$

Ursa Major over Lake Edith.jpg
Northern Sky Over Lake Edith.jpg
Lake Edith in Twilight.jpg
Milky Way Over the Athabasca River P...jpg
Big Dipper over Pyramid Mountain.jpg
Milky Way over Pyramid Lake.jpg
Mount Cephren by Moonlight.jpg
Peyto Lake at Night Panorama.jpg
Ursa Major over Peyto Lake in Twilig...jpg
Big Dipper & Cassiopeia Over Tre...jpg
Arcturus and Big Dipper at Cypress H...jpg
Moonrise and the Northern Stars at D...jpg
Summer Milky Way Vertical Panorama (...jpg
$The Full Moon rise of August 11, 2022 over the old grain elevator on Highway 10 at Dorothy, Alberta, in the Badlands of the Red Deer River valley. This was dubbed a "supermoon" and the "Sturgeon Moon" in the popular media. It just happened to rise at a location that placed it right down the south-east facing highway in the valley. I used The Photographer's Ephemeris to locate the spot to get the shot! This is a blend of two exposures: 6-second exposure for the ground and 1/4-second for the Moon, taken moments apart and both with the Canon R5 at ISO 800, on the William Optics 66mm f/7 apo refractor for a focal length of 460mm. I added a mild Orton glow effect to the ground with Luminar AI. Dodging and burning added with a neutral grey layer created with Lumenzia.$

Full Moonrise at Dorothy v2 (Aug 11,...jpg
$The Full Moon rise of August 11, 2022 over the old grain elevator on Highway 10 at Dorothy, Alberta, in the Badlands of the Red Deer River valley. This was dubbed a "supermoon" and the "Sturgeon Moon" in the popular media. It just happened to rise at a location that placed it right down the south-east facing highway in the valley. I used The Photographer's Ephemeris app to locate the spot to get the shot! This is a single 1.6-second exposure with the Canon R5 at ISO 800, on the William Optics 66mm f/7 apo refractor for a focal length of 460mm. However, an unending stream of cars coming down the hill and then toward me as the Moon rose made it impossible to get a shot free of headlights. And yet, in the 20 minutes prior waiting for the Moon to rise, not a car was to be seen. I added a mild Orton glow effect to the ground with Luminar AI. Dodging and burning added with a neutral grey layer created with Lumenzia.$

Full Moonrise at Dorothy v1 (Aug 11,...jpg
Badlands by Super Moonlight (July 12...jpg
Autumn Constellations over Moonlit B...jpg