The Milky Way over the Milk River (May 2025)
This is a classic Milky Way arch panorama, with the Milky Way, appropriately over the Milk River, as it winds through the sandstone rock formations and cliffs of Writing-on-Stone (Aisinai'pi) Provincial Park in southern Alberta. The Milk River is one of the few rivers in Canada that flow south into the Missouri River watershed and so into the Gulf of Mexico. It is flowing from right to left here, from west to east. It was quite windy this night, so the water was ripply and blurred by the long exposures, with no distinct reflections.
Aisinai'pi is a sacred site to the Blackfoot First Nations, and the sandstone cliffs are carved with petroglyphs recording life and historic incidents on the plains. In Blackfoot skylore the Milky Way is "Makoyoohsokoyi," the Wolf Trail, named for the legendary wolves who taught humans to live together in harmony.
Adding to the sky colours and the red nebulas (hydrogen gas clouds) along the Milky Way are green bands of natural airglow, particularly bright to the east at centre, and what I think is aurora, not airglow, adding the magenta glow to the northeast at left.
The ground is illuminated only by starlight, but the long exposures used bring out details and colours in the ground and sky that the unaided eye would not have seen, but which are nevertheless present. For example, the airglow and aurora was not visible to the eye except as a general brightening of the sky.
This was May 25, 2025, between midnight to 12:30 am, when the centre of the Galaxy area in Sagittarius and Scorpius was rising in the southeast at far right down the river, but the Milky Way was still low enough across the sky to be contained within the camera frame for an "arch" panorama. Later this night or later in the summer, while the Galactic Centre would have been higher in the south, the Milky Way would have been too high in the east to frame easily in a panorama. The pano extends over 180° and was shot from the beach area on the east side of the campground.
Technical:
This is a blend of two separate panos for the ground and sky:
- 10 segments, untracked, for the ground,
- with 10 segments, tracked, for the sky.
- Each segment is a single exposure: 1 minute at ISO 1600 for the ground, and 30 seconds at ISO 3200 for the sky,
- all at f/2 with the Canon RF28-70mm lens at 28mm and f/2 on the astro-modified Canon EOS R, and with an URTH Night broadband light pollution filter on the lens.
The camera was on the Star Adventurer Mini tracker.
I shot the ground segments from L to R first, then immediately afterwards shot the sky segments, with the tracker motor now on, from R to L. The segments were spaced 20º apart with the camera in portrait orientation.
Segments stitched in Adobe Camera Raw yielding two DNG pans, which were layered and masked in Photoshop. Images processed primarily in ACR with AI-generated Landscape masks.
The Milky Way over the Milk River (May 2025)
This is a classic Milky Way arch panorama, with the Milky Way, appropriately over the Milk River, as it winds through the sandstone rock formations and cliffs of Writing-on-Stone (Aisinai'pi) Provincial Park in southern Alberta. The Milk River is one of the few rivers in Canada that flow south into the Missouri River watershed and so into the Gulf of Mexico. It is flowing from right to left here, from west to east. It was quite windy this night, so the water was ripply and blurred by the long exposures, with no distinct reflections.
Aisinai'pi is a sacred site to the Blackfoot First Nations, and the sandstone cliffs are carved with petroglyphs recording life and historic incidents on the plains. In Blackfoot skylore the Milky Way is "Makoyoohsokoyi," the Wolf Trail, named for the legendary wolves who taught humans to live together in harmony.
Adding to the sky colours and the red nebulas (hydrogen gas clouds) along the Milky Way are green bands of natural airglow, particularly bright to the east at centre, and what I think is aurora, not airglow, adding the magenta glow to the northeast at left.
The ground is illuminated only by starlight, but the long exposures used bring out details and colours in the ground and sky that the unaided eye would not have seen, but which are nevertheless present. For example, the airglow and aurora was not visible to the eye except as a general brightening of the sky.
This was May 25, 2025, between midnight to 12:30 am, when the centre of the Galaxy area in Sagittarius and Scorpius was rising in the southeast at far right down the river, but the Milky Way was still low enough across the sky to be contained within the camera frame for an "arch" panorama. Later this night or later in the summer, while the Galactic Centre would have been higher in the south, the Milky Way would have been too high in the east to frame easily in a panorama. The pano extends over 180° and was shot from the beach area on the east side of the campground.
Technical:
This is a blend of two separate panos for the ground and sky:
- 10 segments, untracked, for the ground,
- with 10 segments, tracked, for the sky.
- Each segment is a single exposure: 1 minute at ISO 1600 for the ground, and 30 seconds at ISO 3200 for the sky,
- all at f/2 with the Canon RF28-70mm lens at 28mm and f/2 on the astro-modified Canon EOS R, and with an URTH Night broadband light pollution filter on the lens.
The camera was on the Star Adventurer Mini tracker.
I shot the ground segments from L to R first, then immediately afterwards shot the sky segments, with the tracker motor now on, from R to L. The segments were spaced 20º apart with the camera in portrait orientation.
Segments stitched in Adobe Camera Raw yielding two DNG pans, which were layered and masked in Photoshop. Images processed primarily in ACR with AI-generated Landscape masks.