Nightscapes

Passing Through the Earth's Shadow

Cloud cover was not making for an easy time photographing the final total lunar eclipse of the tetrad, last night. The entire first half of the eclipse was completely obscured by clouds and it wasn't until the moon had moved into total eclipse that the clouds broke enough to photograph it. I then had to work between gaps in the clouds for the next 45 minutes or so before the clouds once again covered the sky and put an end to the show. Still a beautiful event to witness, even for a few moments.

Light Up the Night

The Aurora Borealis during a 5.6 Kp magnitude solar storm over a small lake in the Northwoods of Wisconsin.

Celestial Garden

Milky Way over pine tree and corn fields in Leland, IL

Galactic Harvest

Milky Way over corn fields in Leland, IL

As Night Slowly Fades Away

In the very early morning hours the sky begins to slowly brighten. As this happens the Milky Way and stars begin to fade away. If you catch it just right, though, you can watch the Milky Way trickle into Blue Hour. This shot of the Milky Way was taken at about 3:30 a.m. on a small unnamed lake near Boulder Junction, WI. Surprisingly you could visually tell that the sky was already beginning to brighten when we were there. By 4 a.m. the Milky Way was almost no longer visible. Looking forward to photographing the Milky Way when I visit Africa. The skies don't get much darker than there and there's a big chunk of Milky Way below the equator that we never see here in the Northern Hemisphere.

Northwoods Nightlights

The Milky Way over Little John Lake, in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. The glow on the horizon is from the two nearest towns; Woodruff and Minocqua, WI, over 10 miles away. One of the reasons I love to come to the Northwoods is to get away from light pollution. I can't even see the Milky Way where I live. But I don't mind a little on the horizon. It kinda gives an ethereal effect. I was fortunate enough to get a pretty nice meteor streak right through this 30 second exposure. It had to be a pretty decent one as it was also reflected in the water too. There are two other meteor streaks in this shot as well but they are much fainter. One is just to the left of the Milky Way and the other is near the top-left corner. Can you spot them? I decided to leave them as-is rather then remove or enhance them. It's funny; last year, over Memorial Day weekend, there was supposed to be this freak meteor storm that produced a bunch of meteors per hour so we set up and photographed the sky for hours in the same place and never even got one streak. This year it seamed like every other shot had streaks and we weren't even shooting continuously.

The Stargazer

Just me, out under the stars and the Milky Way, on Highway B near Helen Creek. This is one of my favorite stomping grounds for photographing the Milky Way with tree silhouettes. There is a beautiful peat bog full of tamaracks. The trees are not super tall so you see a lot of sky. This is the view towards Land O' Lakes. You can see a slight bit of light pollution from Land O' Lakes, Eagle River and St. Germain along the horizon in this shot. I must say, it is incredibly hard to stand perfectly still for a long exposure like this. I even doubled the ISO to 16000 so I only needed to stand there for 15 seconds. Let's just say there was more than one attempt to do this and even in this one I am slightly blurry from swaying ever so slightly. Still was a fun shot to pull off and be a part of one of the shots I love taking so much.

Heavenly Night

Methodist Church and the Milky Way, Meadow Bridge, WV

Celestial Garden of Eden

Apple tree and the Milky Way, Meadow Bridge, WV

Reaching Totality

Total Lunar Eclipse, taken on 10/8/2014

The Heavens Above

An equirectangular 360 Degree panorama of the night sky

Milky Way Planet

An equirectangular 360 Degree panorama of the night sky inverted to form a tiny planet.

Milky Way and Spruce

The Milky Way rising above a Spruce tree

The Forest by Starlight

Milky Way over a stand of pine trees, in the Northwoods of Wisconsin

Cosmic Veil

The Milky Way over a stand of tamaracks, in a peat bog, in the Northwoods of Wisconsin.

Starry Night at Turtle Pond

Milky Way over Turtle Pond, Boulder Junction, WI

Milky Way and Dead Tree

Milky Way over Fishtrap Lake with a silhouette of a dead pine tree