This is the Milky Way of the autumn season in the Northern Hemisphere, on a late September night, from the very dark site of Red
This is the Milky Way of the autumn season in the Northern Hemisphere, on a late September night, from the very dark site of Red Rock Canyon, in Waterton Lakes National Park, Canada. The scene is a 360° panorama taking in the entire sky, taken about 11:00 pm. Illumination is solely by starlight. Being autumn, the larches and aspens are in autumn colours. Snow is on Mount Blakiston at left, while the sharp peak at right is Anderson Peak. The galactic centre is toward the southwest at bottom, though Sagittarius itself had set by the time I shot this panorama. The bright star cloud of Scutum is above the mountains. The Milky Way stretches up through Aquila, through the Summer Triangle stars, with the Cygnus starcloud below centre. At centre is the dark nebula known as the Funnel Nebula. Above it, and above centre, the Milky Way continues through Cepheus, Cassiopeia, and into Perseus. The stars of Auriga and Taurus are just rising in the northeast at top. The Andromeda Galaxy is the fuzzy spot at left of centre. The Pleiades are above the mountains at top left. The dark lanes along the Milky Way are obvious, and with differing densities and opacities. At left is the faint Zodiacal Band, and the brighter diffuse glow of the Gegenschein, in Pisces at this time of year. This glow is always at the point in the sky opposite the Sun, where cometary dust particles reflect sunlight directly back to Earth. To the right the sky is colored red by a dim aurora to the north, and by airglow. My other camera is in the scene, shooting a time-lapse of the Milky Way motion. This is a multi-tier panorama, consisting of 48 segments (!), in 4 tiers of 12 segments each, taken with the iPano motorized panning unit. Each exposure was 30 seconds at f/2 with the 24mm lens and Canon 6D at ISO 6400. Stitching was with PTGui, which did it flawlessly. The original image is 12,000 x 12,000 pixels.
Size: 5400px × 5400px
Location: Red Rock Canyon, Waterton Lakes National Park, Canada.
Photo credit: © Alan Dyer / VWPics / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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