A 150° panorama showing the full sweep and arc of the noctilucent cloud display of June 20, 2021, in its later stages, as the clouds retreated to a lo


A 150° panorama showing the full sweep and arc of the noctilucent cloud display of June 20, 2021, in its later stages, as the clouds retreated to a low but bright band across the northwest and northern horizon, here over the wind-rippled waters of Crawling Valley Reservoir near home in southern Alberta. The wind prevented the ideal reflection. This was June 20, 2021, the evening of summer solstice this year. So this was the shortest night of the year with the Sun the least distance below the horizon it would get at my latitude of 51° N. The colours blend the blue, yellow and orange of the solstice twilight with the blue-white of the NLCs, with a slight reddish tinge at the tops of the clouds where the Sun is setting. This is a crop of a 24-section panorama with the 85mm Samyang lens and Canon R6, in portrait orientation (moving the camera 10° between segments), stitched with Adobe Camera Raw.


Size: 5400px × 1223px
Photo credit: © Alan Dyer / VWPics / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: 20, 2021, 85mm, acr, alberta, astrograph, clouds, crawling, galaxy, june, lake, mesospheric, nlcs, noctilucent, panorama, polar, portrait, prairie, reflection, samyang, solstice, summer, twilight, valley