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Best of Astrophotography { 73 images } Created 13 Aug 2020

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$A composite of the August 21, 2017 total eclipse of the Sun, showing the second and third contact diamond rings and Baily’s Beads at the start (left) and end (right) of totality, flanking a composite image of totality itself. The diamond ring and Baily’s Beads images are single images. The totality images is a blend of 12 exposures from 1/1600 sec to 1 second, stacked as a smart object and combined using the Mean stack mode to blend the images. Several High Pass filter layers were added to sharpen and increase the contrast in the coronal structures. Regulus is the star at lower left. Placement of the images only roughly matches the actual position and path of the Sun across the sky. However, the time sequence runs from left to right. All taken through the 106mm Astro-Physics Traveler refractor with a 0.85x reducer/flattener, yielding f/5 at 500mm focal length, wide enough to capture Regulus at left. All with the Canon 6D MkII camera at ISO 100. Shot from a site in the Teton Valley, Idaho, north of Driggs.$

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$The North America Nebula (NGC 7000) and associated nebulosity and star clusters, near the bright blue-white star Deneb in Cygnus. This is with the Series 6000 Meade 70mm f/5 astrographic refractor (for a 350mm focal length), taken on May 15, 2018. This is a stack of 8 x 5-minute exposures with the filter-modified Canon 5D MkII at ISO 1600, with a ninth exposure blended in to add the glow around Deneb from the high haze passing through during that exposure, to add the colour contrast between the blue star and red nebula. All stacking in Photoshop.$

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$A composite of the August 21, 2017 total solar eclipse showing third contact – the end of totality – with sunlight beginning to reappear and the array of pink prominences along the limb of the Sun. Seconds later the emerging Sun and diamond ring overwhelmed the large prominence. Regulus is at lower left. This is a composite of two images taken seconds apart: a 1/15th second exposure for the corona and a 1/1000 sec exposure for the prominences and chromosphere. Taken with the 106mm Astro-Physics apo refractor at f/5 and Canon 6D MkII camera at ISO 100. On the Mach One equatorial mount, polar aligned and tracking the sky.$

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$A composite of 4 exposures of the rising Full Moon on New Year’s Day, 2018, rising from left to right over a snowy prairie horizon in southern Alberta. This was the largest and closest Full Moon of 2018 and so ranked as a “supermoon,” or perigean Full Moon. It is the first Full Moon of January, as the next Full Moon is January 31, when the Moon will also be totallty eclipsed. Layers of warm air aloft moving in after an extreme cold snap of -30° C temperatures created the inversion layer which led to the very distorted lunar disk as it rose. Segments of the disk snapping off at the top and bottom presented slight green (first two images) and red flashes (last two images) or tinted segments on the edge of the disk. This is a composite of 4 out of 500 images shot for a time-lapse sequence, layered in Photoshop. All were with the 66mm f/7 William Optics apo refractor and Canon 60Da camera firing 1/25th second exposures every 1 second.$

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$The 4-day-old waxing crescent Moon on April 8, 2019 in a blend of short and long exposures to bring out the faint Earthshine on the dark side of the Moon and deep blue twilight sky while retaining details in the bright sunlit crescent. This is with the 105mm Traveler refractor and 2X AP Barlow lens for an effective focal length of 1200mm at f/12, and with the cropped-frame Canon 60Da at ISO 400, in a blend of 7 exposures from 1/30 second to 2 seconds, blended with luminosity masks from ADP Pro3 extension panel in Photoshop.$

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$The nearly Full Moon of April 10, 2017 as seen from Australia, and embedded in fast-moving low cloud adding the colourful corona effect around the Moon from water-droplet diffraction. Being in the southern hemisphere, the Full Moon appears “upside-down” compared to a northern view. This is a 6-image blend of exposures from 1/2 second to 1/20-second to capture both the faint clouds and bright Moon. I blended them with luminosity masks (generated with ADP Panel+ Pro) rather than attempting an HDR stack which rarely works well for the Moon.$

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$A selfie with me observing the North America Nebula in the fading moonlight (thus the blue sky) on August 8, 2019 from home, using the Astro-Physics Traveler 105mm refractor on the Mach One mount. I was comparing views with various nebula filters this night. So I was actually observing! In this case using the 31mm Nagler eyepiece. A single 10 second exposure with the 35m lens and Canon 6D MkII. Focused on the foreground. Taken for a book illustration. Illumination is from the red hand controller lighting.$

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$The large emission nebula IC 1396 in Cepheus with the orange “Garnet Star” at top, and the Elephant Trunk Nebula, van den Bergh 142, at bottom as a dark lane protruding into the emission nebula. This is a stack of 5 x 6-minute exposures with the Canon EOS Ra mirrorless camera at ISO 1600 through the Astro-Physics Traveler apo refractor at f/6 with the Hotech field flattener. Stacked, aligned and processed in Photoshop.$

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$Omega Centauri globular cluster, with Canon 20Da camera with 4-inch Astro-Physics Traveler apo refractor at f/6 for 4 minutes each at ISO800. Stack of 4 exposures, averaged stacked. Plus short 2-minute exposure for core area. Taken from Queensland, Australia, July 2006.$

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$The large star-forming region of IC 1396 in Cepheus, taken September 5, 2018 from home in southern Alberta. The wide field includes the bright orange star Mu Cephei, or Herschel’s Garnet Star, at top. The Elephant Trunk Nebula is at centre. North is at top. This is a stack of 7 exposures: 5 x 6 minutes at ISO 1600 with an LPS light pollution reduction filter and 2 x 5 minutes at ISO 1600 without the LPS filter, all with the 77mm f/4 Borg Astrograph and filter-modified Canon 5D MkII. I refocused between unfiltered and filtered shots, and registered the images in Photoshop. The filtered shots record the red nebulosity with more intensity. The unfiltered shots provide a more natural color to the stars and background sky. So this is a composite that blends the best of both worlds. Diffraction spikes added with Astronomy Tools actions.$

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$A composite of the November 11, 2019 Transit of Mercury across the disk of the Sun, on a day with no sunspots on the Sun. The temperature was about -20° C to -15° C this morning but the sky was perfectly clear. This takes in the last 3 hours of the 5.5-hour event starting at 8:05 a.m., just before mid-transit at 8:19 a.m. MST. The Sun rose at 7:50 a.m. MST this morning from my location in Alberta, Canada, with the transit in progress. But for the first few minutes the Sun’s image was so distorted from atmospheric turbulence that Mercury recorded only as a fuzzy blur. As it is, the disks of Mercury from early in the morning are soft and distorted. The 37 images composited here start at 8:05 a..m. MST, at left, 12 minutes before mid-transit, and end with Mercury just beginning its egress of the disk at right at 11:02 a.m., with images for the composite selected at 5-minute intervals. I actually shot frames every 15 seconds for a time-lapse, for 700 images in total. The images are stacked in Photoshop with the Darken Color blend mode. North is up here, with Mercury moving from left to right, east to west, across the Sun above the ecliptic which itself is angled up in relation to the cardinal directions. All were with the Canon 60Da camera, and taken through the Astro-Physics 105mm apochromatic refractor with a 2X Barlow giving f/12 at 1200mm focal length, on an equatorial mount tracking the Sun, and through a Thousand Oaks metal-on-glass solar filter. The yellow tint on the Sun is what the filter provides.$

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$The California Nebula in Perseus, aka NGC 1499, in a set of guided exposures taken January 5, 2018 from home. This is a stack of 12 x 6-minute exposures, median combined to eliminate a satellite trail, and taken with the filter-modified Canon 5D MkII camera at ISO 800, and TMB 92mm apo refractor with the Borg 0.85x flattener/reducer for f/4.5. Guided with PHD2 with the Starshoot autoguider on the EQ6-R mount.$

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$Here’s a variation on creating a time-sequence composite of the August 21, 2017 total solar eclipse. In this case, time runs from left to right, from the last filtered partial phases I shot, through unfiltered shots of the rapidly changing last glimmer of sunlight disappearing behind the advancing Moon at “Second Contact,” forming “Baily’s Beads, to totality at centre. ] The sequence continues at right with the Sun emerging from behind the Moon in a rapid sequence at “Third Contact,” followed by two post-totality filtered partials to bookend the total eclipse images. The C3 limb had a beautiful array of pink prominences. The Contact 2 and 3 images were taken in rapid-fire continuous mode and so are only fractions of a second apart in real time. Most are 1/4000th second exposures. The totality image is a blend of 7 exposures, from 1/1600 second to 1/15 second to preserve detail in the corona from inner to middle corona. These were aligned, and merged into a smart object and blended with a Mean combine stack mode. It is not an HDR image. I added a couple of layers of High Pass filtering to sharpen structure in the corona. The partials are 1/2500-second exposures through a Thousand Oaks metal-on-glass solar filter for the yellow colour. All were taken through an Astro-Physics 106mm apochromatic refractor with a 0.85x field flattener/reducer for an effective focal length of 500mm at f/5. The flattener added some flares off the diamond rings. The telescope was on an AP Mach One equatorial mount, aligned and tracking the sky, a rare circumstance for me for any total solar eclipse. The placement of the frames here only roughly matches the actual position and motion of the Sun across the sky during the time around totality. Partials and C2 and C3 images layered into Photoshop and blended into the background totality image with a Lighten blend mode, and masked to reveal just the wanted bits of each arc. The site was north of Driggs, Idaho in t$

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$The 24-day-old waning crescent Moon with the Astro-Physics 130mm refractor (with 2X Barlow lens) and Canon 60Da camera. On the morning of July 19, 2017. Taken as part of a series of waning Moon shots. This morning the sky was hazy with forest fire smoke making the Moon appear yellow. This discolouration was corrected for this image.$

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$The well-publicized - if not overly publicized! - supermoon (a perigee Full Moon) of November 14, 2016, seen here about 3 degrees above the horizon, rising out of low clouds. The yellow colour is natural, and illuminated the field with a golden glow. However, this is a stack of 4 exposures, from long to short, to create an “HDR” style stack as the longest exposure needed for the clouds blew out the bright Moon. A short exposure was needed for the Moon itself. I took 4 exposures at about 2 stop increments from 1.5 seconds to 1/15 second and blended them not with HDR software but with luminosity masks using the ADP Panel+ scripts from Aaron Dowling Photography. All exposures with the Explore Scientific FCD100 apo refractor at f/7 and Nikon D750 at ISO 100.$

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$NGC 7000, the North America Nebula, with the Pelican Nebula, IC 5067, at right, in Cygnus, taken from home November 21, 2016 as part of testing of the Explore Scientific FCD100 102mm apo refractor. This is a stack of 5 x 6-minute exposures at f/7 with the ES field flattener, and at ISO 1600 with the filter-modified Canon 5D MkII. Star diffraction spikes added with AstronomyTools actions.$

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$The Full Moon rising on December 22, 2018, the day after the winter solstice, in a perfectly clear sky and over the distant horizon to the northeast over the snow-covered prairie. Some cows are grazing at left! The top edge of the Moon has a green rim and the bottom edge a red rim, from atmospheric refraction. But it made for a Christmas-coloured Moon ornament on the horizon! The dark lunar mare and even the bright rays splashing from Tycho at bottom are visible. This is a close up with the 105mm refractor, the Astro-Physics Traveler, at f/5.8 for a focal length of 609mm, and with the Canon 6D MkII at ISO 200, with the camera on auto exposure and taken as part of a 950-frame time-lapse sequence. This is a single exposure.$

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$The 4-day-old waxing crescent Moon (more like the 3.5-day Moon) on April 8, 2019 exposed for just the bright sunlit crescent, revealing details along the terminator. This is with the 105mm Traveler refractor and 2X AP Barlow lens for an effective focal length of 1200mm at f/12, and with the cropped-frame Canon 60Da at ISO 400, for a single exposure of 1/60 second. This is not a stack or mosaic.$

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$A closeup of Procyon in Canis Minor, taken in moonlight, with the 130mm f/6 apo refractor. This is a stack of six 2-minute exposures plus three 30-second exposures. All with the Canon 6D MkII at ISO 800. The diffraction spikes were added with Astronomy Tools Photoshop actions.$

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$A selfie of me observing in the moonlight with the 80mm apo refractor. For use as a book illustration. A single exposure with the Sigma 24mm and Nikon D750.$

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$The large emission nebula IC 1805 in Cassiopeia, aka the Heart Nebula. The round nebula at top right is NGC 896. The large loose star cluster at centre is Mel 15; the star cluster at left is NGC 1027. The small cluster below NGC 896 is Tombaugh 4. This is a stack of 8 x 6-minute exposures with the Canon EOS Ra mirrorless camera at ISO 1600 through the Astro-Physics Traveler apo refractor at f/6 with the Hotech field flattener. Stacked, aligned and processed in Photoshop.$

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