Posted on by Alan Dyer

Moonlight on the Prairie


The rising almost-Full Moon, a “Blue Moon” of July 30, 2015, rising behind a rustic old farmhouse near Bow Island, Alberta. The Moon sits in the pibk Belt of Venus with the blue shadow of the Earth below. This is a single frame from a 600-frame time-lapse sequence, taken with the Canon 6D and 16-35mm lens.

I present a short time-lapse vignette of scenes shot under moonlight on the Alberta prairie.

The movie linked below features sequences shot July 29 and 30, 2015 on beautifully clear moonlit nights at locations south of Bow Island, Alberta, on the wide open prairie. The three-minute video features two photogenic pioneer sites.

Circumpolar star trails over the historic but sadly neglected St. Anthony’s Church between Bow Island and Etzikom, Alberta. The Big Dipper is at left, Polaris at top. The Roman Catholic church was built in 1911 by English, Russian German immigrants. It served a dwindling congregation until 1991 when it closed. At that time workers found a time capsule from 1915 with names of the priest and parisioners of the day. In summer of 2014 the Church suffered its latest indignity when the iron cross on its steeple tower was stolen. It was there when I stopped at this Church on a site scouting trip in May 2014. I planned to return on a moonlit night and did on July 29, 2015. A nearby house had been torn down and the cross was now gone. This is a stack of 300 6-second exposures with the Canon 6D at ISO 1600 and 16-35mm lens at f/2.8. Bright light from a 13-day Moon lights the scene, making for very short exposures. The ground comes from one exposure to keep shadows sharp. The final stars also come from another single exppsure taken two minutes after the last trail image. I used the Advanced Stacker Actions to stack the trails.

The church is the now derelict St. Anthony’s Church, a former Roman Catholic church built in 1911 by English and Russian-German immigrants. It served a dwindling congregation until as late as 1991 when it closed. At that time workers found a time capsule from 1915 with names of the priest and parisioners of the day.

The wood church seems to have been largely neglected since.

In the summer of 2014 the Church suffered its latest indignity when the iron cross on its steeple tower was stolen. I also shot in the pioneer cemetery of the Church.

Circumpolar star trails circling above an old rustic and abandoned house near Bow Island, Alberta, with illumination from the nearly Full Moon. Cassiopeia is near centre. Polaris is at top left. This is a stack of 140 frames from a time-lapse sequence with additional frames added for the first and last stars, and the ground coming from a mean combine stack of 8 frames to reduce noise. Each frame is 10 seconds at f/4 with the 16-35mm lens and ISO 1600 with the Canon 6D. Stacked with Advanced Stacker Actions, using the Ultrastreaks effect, from within Photoshop.

The other site is a nearby farmhouse with photogenic textures and accompanied by rustic out buildings that are barely managing to stand.

Illumination was from a waxing gibbous Moon, just 1 to 2 days before the infamous “Blue Moon” of July 31. Its bright light turned the sky blue, and lit the landscape with the same quality as sunlight, because it is sunlight!

Enlarge the video to full screen for the full HD version.

For the technically inclined:

I shot the scenes with three cameras – a Canon 60Da, Canon 6D, and Nikon D750.

The Nikon, with a 24mm lens, was on the Dynamic Perception Stage Zero Dolly and Stage R panning unit, while the 60Da, with a 14mm lens, was on the compact Radian panning unit. The third camera, the 6D, with a 16-35mm lens, was on a fixed tripod for the star trail sequences and stills.

The music is by Adi Goldstein (AGSoundtrax.com), whose music I often use in my sequences. It just seems to work so well, and is wonderfully melodic and powerful. Thank you, Adi!

To process the several thousand frames that went into the final movie, I used Adobe Bridge and Adobe Camera Raw, supplemented by the latest Version 4.2 of LRTimelapse (lrtimelapse.com). Its new “Visual Deflicker” workflow does a beautiful job smoothing out frame-to-frame flickering in sequences shot in twilight under darkening lighting conditions. Thank you Gunther!

For the star trail sequences and the still images above I used the Advanced Stacker Actions from StarCircleAcademy.com. Unlike most other stacking programs, the Stacker Actions work from within Adobe Bridge and Photoshop directly, using the processed Raw images, with no need to create intermediate sets of JPGs. Thank you Steven!

— Alan, August 3, 2015 / © 2015 Alan Dyer / www.amazingsky.com 

3 Replies to “Moonlight on the Prairie”

  2. Again, thanks for sharing your images Alan – wonderful video.

    Are you going to have a “milky way” workshop at Waterton on Sept 18?

    Reply

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