I had occasion to capture some night sky images of Mount Rainier from Crystal Mountain Ski Resort at night some time ago, and here are the images.

The plan was to ride the gondola up top, head out with our packs, find a place to camp and shoot the Milky Way over Mt Rainier.

All went as planned, we rode the super cool gondola up to the restaurant at the top, and chilled while it got dark.

Then, at 10pm the restaurant closed, and everyone left on the last gondola down.

We were alone, and so decided to stay at take pictures from the patio.

The Milky Way rose to the east of Mt Rainier and as the night progressed and the earth revolved the Milky Way appeared to stand straight up above the mountain.

If you look closely at Mt Rainier you can see the gonga lines of climbers headlamps as they ascend from Camp Muir and Camp Sherman.

Capturing night sky images is actually easy. The “how to set the exposure” is very simple. The difficult part is achieving the confluence of two things: 1.) No moon and 2.) no clouds. Oh, three things: 3.) No smoke!

Yes, you do have to travel a bit to a spot away from lights and such. For me that’s easy, I just drive up the North Cascades Highway. If you’re interested in Night Sky Photo Tours, here is a link.