Malcolm Park

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SkyScapes

Each image in this gallery displays a different astronomical subject, listed in the title. The emphasis is on "skyscape" images: these are generally wide-field pictures that capture an astronomical object in the evening, dawn (or nighttime) sky that also include the landscape in the frame. Skyscape images capture a scene the way it looks to the eye of the imager – either a naked-eye view (aka wide field) or a very low-power view as through binoculars. After selecting an image to view, click in the i icon in the upper left for photo details and descriptions
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  • Sunset

    Sunset

    Prince Edward County, ON 9:00pm, 06/29/2020 Nikon D810a iso 200 1/640s exposure, f/9 24mm A sunset photo. I chased this storm as it drifted across the County until sunset. The anvil held on right until the end. It became this frail wispy relic of the storm that it once was, and the light was beautiful just as the sun was setting on the horizon. I had the wrong lens (needed the 14mm) so this is a 4 frame panorama with the 24mm.

  • Earthshine

    Earthshine

    Prince Edward County ON 6:54am, 12/24/2019 Nikon D810A F/2.8 @ 80MM F/8 1.3S exp, tripod and a cable release. An Earthshine photo. Sometimes in the morning I wake up and just look outside to see what the sky looks like. This time I saw a beautiful thin 3.3% illuminated waning crescent 27.8-day old moon with Earthshine over frozen West Lake. I had to image this scene!

  • Two Planets

    Two Planets

    Harrowsmith ON 6:10pm, 12/22/2020 Nikon D810a iso 1600 1/160s exp Edge HD 9.25" SCT @ prime focus, cable release. An image of two planets, Jupiter and Saturn. This image was shot through a telescope. The weather had not been cooperating. We were clouded out for much of the lead up to and including the day of closest approach. But miraculously, a big clearing opened in the cloud deck over Eastern Ontario and we were able to see it. This was a seminal moment in amateur astronomy for me. Nobody alive had ever seen this and will not again for centuries. First, I looked through an eyepiece at the two gas giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn and fortunately they were still in the same field of view. It was still twilight, but the planets were getting low in the west, and would soon be in the trees so I quickly switched over to take a few quick shots with my DSLR. My pictures reflect quite nicely how the field of view looked through my eyepiece (24mm).

  • Mercury

    Mercury

    San Pedro de Atacama, Chile 7:47pm, 10/29/2019 Nikon D810a ISO 1000 1/13s exp f/2.8 50mm An image of Mercury. On one of my trips to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile I ventured out with a friend into the Salar de Atacama at sunset. The salar is the vast expansive salt flat south of San Pedro. As we lingered in the afterglow of sunset, colours developed in the thin cirrus that I was cursing earlier, eventually becoming these beautiful pink brush strokes in the sky. In this shot we have Mercury to the upper left of Venus, which is to the lower left of a 4.3% illuminated 1.9-day old waxing crescent moon.

  • ISS

    ISS

    Prince Edward County, ON 1:02am, 05/28/2017 Nikon D810a ISO 3200 10s exp f/2.8 14mm tripod, cable release. An image of the ISS. A forecast of possible auroral activity had me setting up my camera for a time-lapse on my driveway looking north. The time-lapse turned out great, but when I played it back, I realized I had captured multiple ISS passes and after checking, I actually had three. So, I layered them all in Photoshop for this composite.

  • Star Trails

    Star Trails

    Algonquin Radio Observatory, Algonquin Park ON 3:09am, 10/01/2016 Nikon D800 iso 3200 15s exp f/2.8 14mm cable release, tripod, dew heaters. A star trails image. I spent a weekend at the ARO with friends from a Facebook group I belong to. We were given a tour of the observatory and even got to climb up into the dish which at that moment, was pointing to the zenith. I was hopeful of aurora that night and imagined them dancing behind the big dish of the ARO. I set up to capture a night-long time-lapse of the night sky but as it turned out, it was mostly cloudy, and the aurora were very faint. I did compile the frames into a video, but I found a selection of frames around 3:00am that were cloudless, so I created this star trails image with Photoshop.

  • The Milky Way

    The Milky Way

    San Pedro de Atacama, Chile 7:51pm, 08/29/2016 Nikon D800 iso 3200 30s exp f/3.5 8mm 180-degree fisheye lens, tripod, cable release. A Milky Way image. If you ever look at the summer Milky Way from Canada, it typically is cut off at the horizon at or very near the Scorpion’s tail (this varies with latitude). But if you go to the Southern Hemisphere you can see the part of the Milky Way that is hidden from view to Canadians. The Galactic Core is at the zenith in the southern hemisphere's winter months. Looking straight up, one can see Scorpius, Antares, and all the beautiful nebulae and dark lanes that from home, appear on the southern horizon. This is one of the shots I planned on taking when an opportunity arose to return to Chile in the month of August.

  • Constellation Scorpius

    Constellation Scorpius

    Prince Edward County, ON 10:36pm, 07/15/2020 Nikon D810a ISO 2000 20s exp f/2.8 24mm tripod, cable release A Constellation image of Scorpius. In image 07 I showed a view of southern Milky Way stretching overhead. For comparison, here is an image of the Summer Milky Way as seen from Canada, specifically Prince Edward County, ON overlooking West Lake. You can see the constellation framed by the trees, with the tail and stinger just slightly above the lake, curving up to Antares and the scorpion’s claws. Some fireflies photo bombed the shot with their green streaks on the left.

  • Asterism Summer Triangle

    Asterism Summer Triangle

    Prince Edward County ON, 11:35pm 06/11/2020 Nikon D810a ISO 800 201s exp f/2.8 14mm tracked with a Star Adventurer, tripod, cable release. An Asterism image of the Summer Triangle. Looking east about 60 degrees above the horizon we can see the familiar sights of Deneb in Cygnus, Vega in Lyra, and Altair in Aquila. Each of these constellations stands on its own but these bright stars also form the asterism known as the Summer Triangle. Once I polar aligned my Star Adventurer, I mounted the camera and framed the shot with a couple of high iso/short exposure practice shots. Then I manually triggered the shutter for 3 minutes and 21 seconds.

  • Aurora

    Aurora

    Brooklin, ON (north end of Whitby), 9:37pm, 10/24/2011 Nikon D3s ISO 1600 2s exp f/3.2 14mm tripod, cable release An Aurora image. Brooklin ON is at the north end of Whitby ON, on the north shore of Lake Ontario east of Toronto. It’s in the Bortle 10 dead zone of light pollution and not the best place to observe the night sky. On this night, it did not matter. I shoot a lot of time-lapse, and when I set up on this evening, I intended to shoot time-lapse to capture the aurora which we could see had begun to fire up. I have a rule of thumb, never interrupt a sequence because you never know what is going to happen. I am so glad I interrupted this one! The aurora began as a thin green arc in the north, as they so often do. We (Tony Ward and I) did not think much of it, but then we realized that something was changing. Soon, Aurora crashed over us like a tidal wave and the whole sky was crimson red, in every direction. Even looking south, the aurora was red. Looking up we had the vortex experience of auroral lines going straight up to infinity. My exposures were too long. I had to cut down to two seconds. The show lasted about 30 minutes before it began to fade. We called everyone we knew on our cell phones to tell them to look up. It was the thrill of a lifetime.

  • SunDogs

    SunDogs

    Prince Edward County, ON 11:23AM, 01/26/2019 Nikon D810a ISO 200 1/8000s exp f/5.6 8mm fisheye, tripod, cable release. An image of Sundogs. Looking due south from my back deck I saw these beautiful sundogs, and then noticed also that some other interesting effects were present. I decided that the best way to capture everything in one field of view was to shoot with my 8mm fisheye lens. In this shot we have a partial 22degree halo, a partial upper tangent arc, and a circumzenithal arc in addition to the Sundogs.

  • Solar Eclipse

    Solar Eclipse

    Near Roberts, Idaho USA 11:27am MDT 08/21/2017 Nikon D300s iso 500 1.3s exp f/10 10mm fisheye (1.5x sensor 15mm full frame equivalent) cable release, tripod. A Solar Eclipse image. The epic road trip for the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse began with plans to drive from Prince Edward County ON to observe with a group of NYAA and RASC members at a Grand Island Nebraska KOA campsite. The location was perfect but alas, the sky did not cooperate (to my standards). So, I decided to go west, much further west, and I ended up in Idaho (where I met up with my friends the Szabototh’s) in a spot that was also, perfect. There, we observed the event under ideal conditions for a solar eclipse. The crowd was full of anticipation and excitement as totality neared. As the sun became mostly obscured by the moon, it got chilly, and the air was dead calm. We became aware that the shadow of the moon was looming in the distance like a thunderstorm, a dark foreboding presence. And then the shadow swept over us, and it was just glorious. You can see our telescopes in the foreground, hauled across the continent just for this moment and you can see the sunset colours on the horizon, which surrounded us in every direction.

  • Comet Neowise

    Comet Neowise

    Prince Edward County ON, 10:42pm, 07/15/2020 Nikon D810a ISO 3200 10s exp f/2.8 58mm tripod, cable release. A Comet image. Comet Neowise came out of nowhere to capture the imagination of the world. Its brief appearance gave average folks in the northern hemisphere a chance to literally connect with the Solar System, and the Universe simply by stepping outside and looking up in the sky after dark. The nights were warm, the comet was bright and it shone at its best in the evenings. Perfect! This image is my favourite because it was shot from my backyard, and gives a sense of scale above my house. They say a 50mm lens gives a close approximation to the human eye, and this was shot at 58mm. This comet was the biggest and brightest I have ever seen.

  • Perseid Meteor

    Perseid Meteor

    Prince Edward County, 10:06pm, 08/10/2020 Nikon D810a iso 3200 30s exp f/2.8 14mm PEC ON 10:06PM cable release, tripod, dew heaters. A Meteor image. The Perseids peak is usually preceded by a ramping up of increased activity, and also following the peak as activity drops off. So when the forecast called for clear skies on the 10th of August (the peak was on the 12/13) I decided to set up for meteor shooting. I was fortunate to capture this one right beside the Milky Way.

  • Zodiacal Light

    Zodiacal Light

    Portal Arizona USA, 5:56am MT, 12/13/2018 Nikon D810a iso 3200 30s exp f/2.8 28mm tripod, cable release. An image of Zodiacal Light. After a night of observing the Geminids meteor shower in the pristine clear skies of southern Arizona, I noticed in the predawn sky that Venus was rising. The Zodiacal Light began to emerge and then Mercury appeared over the distant mountain range. I had been looking mostly south and west up until this point, so I turned my camera to the east. As I triggered the shutter, a final Geminid Meteor left its mark.

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    Comet Neowise
    Perseid Meteor
    Zodiacal Light