Moonrise Light at Dinosaur Park

The eroding formations of Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, lit by the rising gibbous Moon, off camera at right, on April 21/22, 2019. This is looking north, with Polaris at upper centre, Capella setting at left, Vega rising at right, and the W of Cassiopeia at lower centre.

This is a stack of 8 exposures, mean combined to smooth noise, for the ground, and one exposure from that set for the sky. All with the 15mm Laowa lens at f/2.8 and Sony a7III at ISO 3200, each for 30 seconds. The frames were taken near the end of a time-lapse sequence demonstrating a “moonstrike” sequence of the ground lighting up with warm moonlight during a “bronze hour” period. Luminar Flex effects Soft Glow added to the sky and Autumn Colors added to the ground.

The second image is of the same scene but with star trails. It is a stack of 8 exposures, mean combined to smooth noise, for the ground, and 250 exposures for the sky, blended with Lighten mode to create the trails. However, I used the Advanced Stacker Plus actions in Photoshop to do the stacking, creating the tapering effect in the process.