Night Watch

A 30 second exposure of the night sky from The Crossing Resort at  the border of Grasslands National Park.

Nothing fancy for equipment. A simple radio remote to trigger the shutter of my Canon XSI (although the self timer would have worked to but I didn't want to run in the dark) ,a 18-55mm lens at f3.5, shutter at 30 seconds, iso 1600 - and of course a tripod mounted low to the ground to give more presence to the sky. That isn't smoke about the cookhouse, that is the Milky Way! 

  A quick dash over to the light switch then standing in the door for 10 seconds before dashing back to kill the light created more blur in my profile that I intended.  Lesson learned.  Next time I will have an assistant or use a remote triggered flash to light in interior.

Set The Sky Free

Grasslands National Park in southern Saskatchewan is a dark sky preserve.  It's relatively remote location far from large cities and the conservative use of night lighting from surrounding neighbors create fantastic clear night skys.  We traveled there at the end of August with misgivings as we watched the sky for any sign of the last two days of rain giving way.  Incredibly, just before sunset, the clouds cleared and gave us an incredible clear sky.  The new moon set just after sunset and we were left to enjoy the show.

We camped on the northern border of Grasslands at The Crossing Resort which is where I found this corral fence line to give a foreground to the wonder of the sky.