On a Clear Night

Growing up near Los Angeles, the city lights generally overcame the light of the stars and only the brightest were visible, even on a clear night.  The first time I looked up and truly saw the stars on a dark, moonless night was in the Wind River Canyon of Wyoming as a teenager.  I don’t remember exactly how old I was but I distinctly remember the event.  We stopped at a roadside pullout and when I looked up, I was completely awestruck by the number of stars I could see.  My fascination with what I saw has never faded.  As I have learned more about photography, my goal has been to not only capture the magnificence of the stars but to also strive to capture the essence of how I feel when I stand among them.

As Gayla and I ventured out camping in Central Colorado, I wanted to try to find a place for some star photography.  It is common in the summer to have scattered thunderstorms during the afternoon that often dissipate as the evening goes on.  I was hoping we would get lucky and have a clear night.  We were not disappointed!

Besides, the photography, I wanted Gayla to see the “stars of the Milky Way”.  She had never really been out on really, really dark night to see this majestic sight and I thought it would be cool to share the experience with her.  I have often described to Gayla that seeing the night sky makes me feel totally insignificant when I begin to wrap my head around the magnitude of what I am looking at.  While that might be considered a bit depressing, I find it uplifting.  I, like many others, find spiritual peace in the night sky and certainly cannot take myself or my little worries in life all too seriously when I put my existence into perspective.  Admittedly, as I wrote this, I started laughing…does this little blog post really matter in the big scheme of things??  Not really!! 🙂

So why write this if it doesn’t really matter?  Simple…I hope this motivates anyone who reads this to add the night sky to their bucket list.  It may be a couple hour drive to get out of the city and into a remote area but it is worth it.  It can be a little freaky to be out there all alone but it is worth it…take a friend or two.  The more the merrier and the darker the better!  To all my SoCal friends, Joshua Tree NP is an amazing place to see the stars at night, or anywhere out in the desert away from the city.  It’s on my bucket list for that reason.  To get the full experience, plan to go when there is no moon.  The site https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/ is a wonderful resource for sun and moon planning.

Some fun facts to aid the experience, gathered from a quick internet search:

The stars we see as we look up with our naked eye are all part of the Milky Way Galaxy.  This collection of around 400 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy is only one of an estimated 100-200 billion galaxies out there (and estimates only grow).  The numbers of stars are definitely impressive, as are the distance between objects out there.  Besides our sun, which is a relatively small star, the next closest star is Proxima Centauri which is a little over four light years away.  Traveling at the speed of light (186,282 miles/second), you could go from Los Angeles to New York and back 38 times in ONE SECOND.  To get to the next closest star, you would have to travel at that speed for over FOUR YEARS without stopping.  The stars in the Big Dipper range from 58-124 light years away and the north star is 433 light years away.  The light of stars we see may have come from stars that no longer exist and went away long before we were born!

The next closest galaxy, Andromeda, is approximately 2.4 million light years away.  The picture below has the Andromeda Galaxy visible at the very top of the picture, right of center, and looks like a blurry star with a little fuzz sticking out the top and bottom.

Here’s a great website to learn more about the Milky Way Galaxy: https://www.space.com/19915-milky-way-galaxy.html.  There is also a link there to the Andromeda Galaxy and it’s collision course with the Milky Way.

The picture at the top was taken with a Canon 6D camera, EF16-35mm f/2.8L II lens shot at 19mm. It is a 29 second exposure, f2.8, ISO 3200. We were at a campground near Creede, CO. There was very little ambient light which is great for taking star pictures but we were near the highway. The lighting on the cliffs was provided by a random car driving down the highway. It was neat to see how the light brought together the beauty on this planet juxtaposed against the majesty of the heavens.  Just lucky, I guess!

Enjoy the adventure!  Love to hear your stories!!