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The Northern Lights from Norway
The skies of Norway provided superb nights of Northern Lights as I sailed the coast. As I did last autumn, I was able to join a cruise along the Norwegian coast, instructing an aurora tour group from...
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The Rise and Set of the Easter Full Moon
A clear day on Easter Eve allowed me to photograph the setting Full Moon in the morning and the rising Full Moon in the evening. This was another of the year’s special Full Moons, and this time for a...
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STEVE Puts on a Show
The strange aurora named Steve put on a show on Sunday, May 6. The past weekend was a good one for Northern Lights here in Alberta and across western Canada. A decent display lit the northern sky on...
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The 2018 Edition of “Nightscapes and Time-Lapses”
Revised and expanded, the new Third Edition of my Nightscapes and Time-Lapses eBook provides one of the most comprehensive guides to the subject you’ll find! The 2018 Third Edition of my ebook How to...
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On Solstice Pond
Solstice nights have been filled with twilights, planets, and noctilucent clouds. Astronomers tend to curse the short nights and late sunsets of summer solstice. But the bright nights do offer unique...
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Banff by Night
Three perfect nights in July provided opportunities to capture the night sky at popular sites in Banff National Park. When the weather forecast in mid-July looked so promising I made an impromptu trip...
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“Nightscapes & Time-Lapses” Goes Universal!
I’m pleased to announce that my “Nightscapes and Time-Lapses” eBook is now available for all devices as a “universal” PDF! First published in 2014, and revised several times since then, my How to...
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Aurora Reflections in Yellowknife
The Northern Lights are amazing from Yellowknife, in Canada’s Northwest Territories. A handful of locations in the world are meccas for aurora chasers. Yellowknife is one of them and, for me,...
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Testing ON1 Photo RAW for Astrophotography
Can the new version of ON1 Photo RAW match Photoshop for astrophotography? The short TL;DR answer: No. But … as always, it depends. So do read on. Released in mid-November 2018, the latest version of...
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Photographing the Total Eclipse of the Moon
On the evening of January 20 for North America, the Full Moon passes through the umbral shadow of the Earth, creating a total eclipse of the Moon. No, this isn’t a “blood,” “super,” nor “wolf” Moon....
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Auroras at Sea
As I do a couple of times a year, earlier this month I was cruising the coast of Norway chasing the Northern Lights – successfully! One of my “retirement gigs” is to serve as a lecturer for the...
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Shooting Moonstrikes at Dinosaur Park
It was a magical night as the rising Moon lit the Badlands with a golden glow. When doing nightscape photography it’s often best not to fight the Moon, but to embrace it and use it as your light...
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Testing the Nikon Z6 for Astrophotography
I put the new Nikon Z6 mirrorless camera through its paces for astrophotography. Following Sony’s lead, in late 2018 both Nikon and Canon released their entries to the full-frame mirrorless camera...
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Testing the MSM Tracker
A new low-cost sky tracker promises to simplify not only tracking the sky but also taking time-lapses panning along the horizon. It works but … If you are an active nightscape photographer chances are...
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The Northern Lights of Yellowknife
It was a fabulous week of clear skies and dancing auroras in and around Yellowknife in Canada’s North. For the second year in a row I traveled due north from home in Alberta to visit Yellowknife,...
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The Great Transit Expedition of 2019
On November 11, I traveled to the near-flung corners of my backyard to observe the rare transit of Mercury across the Sun. History is replete with tales of astronomers traveling to the far corners of...
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Ten Tips for Taking Time-Lapses
I present my top 10 tips for capturing time-lapses of the moving sky. If you can take one well-exposed image of a nightscape, you can take 300. There’s little extra work required, just your time. But...
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The Rising of the Harvest Moon
On two clear evenings the Harvest Moon rose red and and large over the Alberta prairie. I present a short music video (linked to below) of time-lapse sequences of the Harvest Moon of 2020 rising. I...
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Tracks of the Geosats
This short video, below, captures time-lapses of the trails of geostationary satellites through southern Orion. It demonstrates the “crowded sky” we now have above us. If you have tried photographing...
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Testing the Canon R6 for Astrophotography
In an extensive technical blog, I put the Canon R6 mirrorless camera through its paces for the demands of astrophotography. Every major camera manufacturer, with the lone exception of stalwart...
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A Showing of STEVE
On August 7, 2022 we were treated to a fine aurora and a superb showing of the anomalous STEVE arc across the sky. Where I live in southern Alberta we are well positioned to see a variety of so-called...
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Testing Raw Developer Software for Astrophotography
I test nine programs for processing raw files for the demands of nightscape astrophotography. Warning! This is a long and technical blog, but for those interested in picking the best software, I...
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The Great April Aurora
On April 23, 2023 the sky erupted with a massive solar storm, bringing the aurora to millions of people around the word. On April 23 warnings went out alerting aurora watchers that a solar storm was...
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Chasing the Annular Eclipse
Like all eclipses, seeing the October 14 annular eclipse of the Sun was not a certainty. As good luck and planning would have it, the sky and location could not have been better! Annular eclipses of...
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Tutorials and Tips for the Solar Eclipse
As eclipse day approaches here are some tips and video tutorials from me about how best to capture the total eclipse of April 8, 2024. There are many ways to capture great images and movies of a total...
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