This trailer for a new documentary on the Rocky Mountains has some amazing footage. I can’t wait to see the full movie! Make sure to watch it in HD.

Mountains in Motion: The Canadian Rockies | Official Trailer from The Upthink Lab on Vimeo.

Jasper National Park offers a great variety of adventures, anytime of the year. These photos reflect on some of them.

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

This video of earth from the International Space Station is even better than the short timelapse video of earth I found last week. The scene at 0:31 shows the Rockies and Jasper National Park just to the left of the middle of the frame. An island of darkness in a sea of light.

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

Last month I posted a photo of the International Space Station flying over Jasper National Park. Here is the view from the other side: North and South America from the ISS. The flyover starts over the Pacific NW of Vancouver Island, continues over the western US, down to Mexico, and on to South America. It ends with sunrise over the Antarctic.

The large areas of city lights show how important Dark Sky Preserves like Jasper National Park are.

There are a lot of outdoor courses out there, but few are as excellent and comprehensive as Mahikan Trails’ survival courses. Just took their 2-day survival course last week. It is actually more of a bushcraft course. At the end of it we had built shelters, made whistles, wood saws, fishing nets, traps, learnt about native foods, fire craft, you name it. And we had a great time while at it. Highly recommended.

This one-hour exposure captures the International Space Station as a bright dotted line among the curved star trails over of Patricia Lake in Jasper National Park. Composite of 490 images, at 10mm, 6sec, f3.5, captured at 4sec intervals. A car’s headlights light up the forest across the lake.
More star photos of Jasper National Park.

The recently announced Jasper Dark Sky Preserve is featured in the April 2011 Canadian Geographic with a 12 page spread. Read Preserving the night skies, Jasper takes the lead, on the Canadian Geographic website.

Leading star and northern lights photographer Yuichi Takasaka gives some great tips on how to take successful night photos. Yuichi was the photographer for the recent Canadian Geographic article on Jasper’s Dark Sky Preserve.

Jasper National Park was declared the world’s largest Dark Sky Preserve today. Dark Sky Preserves (DSP) are areas designated by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC) that promote responsible lighting, offer public observing sites for quality night sky viewing, and have active and engaging public outreach programs about astronomy and responsible lighting. They also demonstrate leadership in responsible lighting within their facilities. Including Jasper, there are currently 11 sites in Canada that have received DSP designation. This is more than all of the other DSPs in the world combined.

Jasper is not only the biggest DSP in the world, but also larger than all other preserves combined. The park offers great night sky observation opportunities, such as this halo around a moon on a cold winter night just outside of the town of Jasper. More information about observation sites, clear sky forecasts and maps can be found on jasperdarksky.org.

Halo around the moon over Whistler mountain, Jasper National Park.

I have uploaded some images of Jasper and Mount Robson to a new Photoshelter account. Check out the Jasper National Park and Mt. Robson galleries on the new site.

Maligne Lake, Jasper National Park

Mt. Robson from Hargreaves Shelter