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AmazingSky Author and astrophotographer Alan Dyer presents images of amazing sights in the sky.

This is the Full Moon of October 25, 2026, the annual "Hunter's Moon," rising over the prairie rangeland and a harvested...
10/26/2026

This is the Full Moon of October 25, 2026, the annual "Hunter's Moon," rising over the prairie rangeland and a harvested wheatfield, from home in southern Alberta. The Moon rose into a clear band of sky on the horizon, but soon disappeared into the clouds this night.

While the Sun was still up it was also in clouds to the southwest so was not lighting the scene. But this night the Moon rose some 20 minutes before sunset, so not ideal geometry for good lighting and sky colours. But it worked!

The Moon shows some ragged edges from atmospheric refraction distorting the disk. Atmospheric absorption yellows the disk.

Technical:
A single 1/125-second exposure with the Canon RF70-200mm lens at 200mm and f/5.6 and Canon R5 at ISO 100. Processed with masks for the scene components in Camera Raw.

Here are two versions, with and without labels and lines, of a vertical panorama of the autumn constellations over the A...
10/23/2026

Here are two versions, with and without labels and lines, of a vertical panorama of the autumn constellations over the Athabasca River, from Jasper National Park on October 15, on a hazy night good for constellation portraits to accentuate the stars. Details in the photo descriptions.

This is a panorama of the star party held at Lake Annette in Jasper National Park, Alberta during the 2026 Jasper Dark S...
10/19/2026

This is a panorama of the star party held at Lake Annette in Jasper National Park, Alberta during the 2026 Jasper Dark Sky Festival.

The star party was held on two nights, October 16 and 17. This was October 17 with the Moon (at far left) 6 days old and with some cloud about. But good views of many objects, including the ever-popular Moon!, were had by all, courtesy of members of the Edmonton Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada and the many and varied telescopes they set up and expertly staffed.

Despite the moonlight, which nicely illuminates the foreground, the Milky Way is just visible over Whistler's Park, with the light on the top of the peak from the Jasper Skytram. At right is the Big Dipper, with the bright star Arcturus at centre over Pyramid Mountain.

Jasper is a Dark Sky Preserve, and hosts an annual Festival to celebrate the sky as a part of the natural environment also worth preserving. But the sky contains lots of streaks from manmade satellites, mostly SpaceX Starlinks.

Technical:
This is a panorama of 6 segments, each 2.5 seconds with the Canon VCM 20mm lens wide open at f/1.4 and Canon R5 at ISO 3200. Stitched in Camera Raw with masks for each image component: sky, mountains, water, foreground, people and some manually brushed masks.

The original is 16,900 pixels wide.

The Big Dipper in Ursa Major and the bright star Arcturus (at left) in Bootes are here over the Athabasca River in Jaspe...
10/17/2026

The Big Dipper in Ursa Major and the bright star Arcturus (at left) in Bootes are here over the Athabasca River in Jasper National Park, Alberta, on October 16, 2026. Arcturus lights up a reflection in the water.

The sky was hazy with high cloud that added the natural star glows, accentuating their size and colour. Bands of green airglow also tint the sky.

In autumn the Big Dipper is low in the north and amenable to nightscapes like this.

This is from the picnic area south of the Goats and Glaciers viewpoint on the Icefields Parkway. I was standing (with difficulty!) on the cobblestones that would have been the riverbed earlier in the summer with higher water levels.

Technical:
A blend of two sets of exposures, tracked and untracked:
– A stack of 4 x 60 seconds, untracked for the ground, at f/2 and ISO 1600
– A stack of 4 x 30 seconds, tracked for the sky, at f/2 and ISO 1600
– All with the Canon VCM 20mm lens on the Canon R5, and on the MSM Nomad tracker.

No filters were employed. The haze provided the star glows naturally this night.

This is a 180º panorama of the stars and Milky Way over Pyramid Lake and Pyramid Mountain, near Jasper, in Jasper Nation...
10/16/2026

This is a 180º panorama of the stars and Milky Way over Pyramid Lake and Pyramid Mountain, near Jasper, in Jasper National Park, Alberta, a Dark Sky Preserve. Taken from Pyramid Island, a popular spot for stargazing and night photography. Several other photographers were here this night.

While the sky seemed clear, except for patchy dark clouds, the sky did not look dark and contrasty to the naked eye. The photos reveal there was high haze, and lots of colourful airglow bands in the upper atmosphere adding patches of green and red to the sky.

The Milky Way is at left over Whistler's Peak, with Sagittarius just setting; the Big Dipper is at right over Pyramid Mountain.

Despite the lights of Jasper being quite well shielded, as per Dark Sky Preserve regulations, the town still lights the sky in the distance at left.

I eliminated some bright satellites but left in the numerous fainter ones, most likely Starlinks.

Technical:
This is a blend of two panoramas, each 7 segments:
– the ground segments for 1 minute each, untracked, wide open at f/1.4 and ISO 800
– the sky segments for 1 minute each, tracked, at f/2 and ISO 1600
All with the Canon R5 and Canon VCM 20mm lens, on the MSM Nomad tracker. Stitched in Adobe Camera Raw.

No filters were employed here.

Taken October 14, 2026 from the westernmost point of Pyramid Island, and the one spot I could find at the water's edge where the bushes interfered least with getting a full panorama from south to north.

Planned with The Photographer's Ephemeris and TPE3D apps.

The Big Dipper over Pyramid Mountain and reflected below in the waters of Patricia Lake, in Jasper National Park. This w...
10/15/2026

The Big Dipper over Pyramid Mountain and reflected below in the waters of Patricia Lake, in Jasper National Park. This was October 14, 2026, on a mild night with the water calm and reflecting the stars. The night was moonless so illumination is from starlight, though the sky is filled with bands of red and green airglow as well. On an autumn night like this the Big Dipper is low in the north and amenable to a reflection.

As a bonus, a slow-moving meteor appeared during the exposure which I saw. It, too, is reflected in the lake.

Pyramid Mountain is the iconic peak behind the townsite of Jasper. There were quite a few nightscape photographers out this night, here across Patricia Lake shooting south, and up the road at Pyramic Lake and Island.

Technical:
This is a single untracked exposure (no stacking or blending here!) of 20 seconds at f/2 with the Canon VCM 20mm lens on the Canon R5 at ISO 3200. Processed in Camera Raw with masks for each component of the image.

Mars near the Beehive star cluster, Messier 44, in Cancer. This was the morning of October 13, 2026, with Mars departing...
10/13/2026

Mars near the Beehive star cluster, Messier 44, in Cancer. This was the morning of October 13, 2026, with Mars departing the cluster to the east. For the previous three mornings Mars had been within the cluster, but clouds prevented a view.

The brightest stars are:
- at top blue Asellus Borealis or Gamma Cancri,
- and at bottom yellow Asellus Australis or Delta Cancri.
- Eta and Theta Cancri are at right, top and bottom respectively. The four form a quadrangle of stars around M44.

Technical:
This is a stack of 10 x 2 minute exposures, guided, with the Starfield Optics Géar70Q refractor at its native f/5, with the Canon R5 at ISO 1600. On the AP400 mount.

An auroral arc across the north with a Kp4-level display underway, good enough for my location at 51º N in Alberta to pu...
10/05/2026

An auroral arc across the north with a Kp4-level display underway, good enough for my location at 51º N in Alberta to put an aurora to the north only. This was October 4, 2026.

The Big Dipper is at left; the Pleiades are rising at right.

The diagonal streak silhouetted in front of the aurora is an aircraft contrail. The brightest lights on the horizon are from farm combines still harvesting.

Technical:
A single 30-second exposure at f/2.8 (wide open) with the ultra-wide Laowa 10mm rectilinear lens, on the Nikon Z8 at ISO 1600.

This is the summer Milky Way, though here on an autumn evening, over the Sheep River Falls in southwestern Alberta, down...
10/04/2026

This is the summer Milky Way, though here on an autumn evening, over the Sheep River Falls in southwestern Alberta, down scenic Highway 546 in Kananaskis Country in the foothills of the Rockies.

The Milky Way extends from Sagittarius just setting behind the mountain, up through Scutum, Aquila and into Cygnus at top, with the red North America Nebula prominent near the star Deneb. The other two stars of the Summer Triangle are – Altair (below) and bright Vega (at upper right).

This is a vertical panorama that extends more than 100º from the Falls below to the stars nearly overhead at top.

It was a clear, dry, mild, and moonless autumn night, with what clouds there were drifting off and clearing up. And what few people were there at the beginning of the evening had gone by the time I finished shooting, though being early October this was still evening, from 8 pm to 10pm.

The ground is illuminated only by starlight. The Moon didn't rise until midnight, by which time I was back home!

Technical:
This is a "vertorama" of tracked sky and untracked ground segments:

— A stitch of 3 segments for the ground, the main one being 4 minutes at f/2 and ISO 400 with Long Exposure Noise Reduction on for hot pixel reduction, but with the upper 2 segments for 2 minutes at ISO 800 with LENR off, to get them shot quickly.

— A stitch of 4 segments for the sky, each sky segment a stack of 4 x 1 minutes at f/2 and ISO 800, stacked in Photoshop. Stacking eliminated aircraft and satellite trails. Though I left one meteor in left of centre.

However, while I shot sky segments immediately after the ground, by the time I finished them the sky near the horizon had cleared up much more. So I reshot the sky segments again from the ground up, angling the camera up at 30º, 45º, 60º and 75º. The sky comes from that second set. But the Milky Way really was in this position relative to the ground, and the tripod position was never moved.

I had this scene on my "to shoot" list for some time, for an autumn night when conditions were right, to be worth the 4 hours of driving to and from the Falls, from home 200 km away. This year they were!

All with the Nikon Z8 and Nikkor S-Line 20mm lens. And on the MSM Nomad tracker. No filters were used here.

Panorama segments stitched in PTGui with transverse cylindrical projection creating two panoramas, one each for the sky and ground, brought together to layer and mask in Photoshop. And with some deft masking for the trees!

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