The only thing that captures my imagination more than images of stark, forbidding mountains are images of the Milky Way.

The sense of wonder looking at a star filled sky…there is nothing like it. All of the themes evoked by such a sight: distance, space, infinity, the unknown, God, space travel, alien races, vastness, our insignificance…I mean, where else do you get such feelings?

And when you add to the starry night sky the strip of the Milky Way, with its mottled colors of gaseous clouds, well then you are exponentially multiplying the element of coolness.

You really cannot stand outdoors and see the Milky Way with out being in awe. Here we stand, on the third planet of a solar system in the outer rim of the galaxy. Somewhere in there, in the center of it all sits an enormous Black Hole. Its gravitational forces helping to hold us all in place.

There is something audacious about heading outdoors to take pictures of the celestial proceedings. It is AWESOME!

Now adding the mountains to your Milky Way images, well, that’s just beyond words.

Capturing the Milky Way

To capture decent Milky Way images you need a few things:

• A decent DSLR – a cropped frame sensor camera works fine, a full frame is better.
• a wide angle lens – 24mm is okay, 20 or even better 14mm
• Tripod
• cable release

You must go when there is no moon in the sky. Any moonlight detracts from the clarity of stars. Clear skies are also a must. Choosing a location away from cities or towns is also important. Actually you can get Milky Way images near towns, but they wont be as clear and bright as images captured far away from the ambient light of “civilization”.

A simple web search will find you a lunar calendar and you can see the moon’s cycle and mark on your calendar the No Moon periods. If you head out with in 1 or 2 days of the New Moon you will be fine.

Images of the Night Sky are available here for purchase!

There are so many great web pages describing the technical details of aperture, shutter speed, ISO and manual focus that I will leave this for you to look up.

Some of my favorite places to capture Night Sky images here in the North Cascades are the Diablo Lake Overlook and the Washington Pass Overlook on the North Cascades Highway.

If you are living near Western Washington and would like to go out on a Night Sky Photo Tour, I have them scheduled each month. Here is the link where you can learn more, see dates and get registered.

There are Drive-In Night Sky Photo Tours, where we drive to a Lookout on the North Cascades Highway and capture images, and Hike-In Night Sky Tours here we hike into a spot with incredible views and spend the night, capturing sunset, Milky Way and Sunrise images.

I hope to see you out there!

This last week I have been out 3 times to capture Night Sky Images. Here are the results of those trips.