Orion leaping the Three Sisters

It’s been several months since I’ve pulled out the Canon T6s DSLR, along with the Skywatcher Star Adventurer mount, and I’m so happy I did. It’s really easy to get caught up in the obsession for even greater detailed and distant deep sky astrophotography images, you forget that anyone with a basic DSLR and lens can capture some absolutely amazing images of the night sky.

This short trip to the Rocky Mountains allowed me to take a run at something I’ve always wanted to try, Milky Way nightscaping. I was very lucky that the ‘stars aligned’ to allow me some cold, clear nights to capture images in front of the Three Sisters Mountain in Canmore, AB. The local Bortle 4 skies were an absolute delight and really make you appreciate the night skies and how much we take it for granted. It also highlights how heavy the light pollution is in the city for shooting deep sky objects and how much we need to rely on narrowband filters to block it out.

Between work, young kids, and other obligations, I’m finally satisfied with the small accumulation of time I’ve spent editing over the past few weeks. ⁣

Here are two versions of my image, with the second having a bit more curve stretch to bring and brighten some of the Milky Way details. I’m torn on which I prefer more, but I’m really liking the cool tone 😏