Photo of the Week for January 2, 2016
The Dominion Astrophysical Observatory is situated atop Little Saanich Mountain on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. In spite of its proximity to Victoria, the province’s capital city, the observatory site still boasts reasonably dark skies, as this photo by John McDonald demonstrates. The DAO grounds are regularly utilized by members of the Victoria Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, which has its own small observatory located there.
McDonald captured this striking view of the Milky Way arching over the dome housing the 72-inch Plaskett telescope on November 28, 2015. He used a Belomo MS Peleng 3.5/8mm fisheye lens attached to his modified Canon EOS 6D DSLR camera for this 2-minute exposure at f/3.5 and ISO 400.
