From last weekend’s trip to the Colorado high country. Taken on Friday night, I was pretty beat after working and driving but made myself leave the warm bed at camp and go out and capture a few images of the show after dark. Certainly, ideally, I would have gone far later at night but as is, the images didn’t come out too bad.

Here, you clearly see the center of our galaxy and as an added bonus, Mars (bright red, bottom left). Just below Mars, the lights from a plane is seen and if you look close toward the top right you see the faint light trail of a satellite.

Last winter I bought myself a second camera body (#Canon 6D Mark II) and a fast, wide angle lens (EF 16-35mm f/2.8L III USM). Landscapes and stars were my biggest reason for selecting this gear and while I have indeed used it on daytime subjects, I had yet to use it on the night sky – until last week.

It wasn’t ideal but there was a brief window of a couple of hours between sunset and moonrise and I gave it a shot. I came away with some captures that I am pretty pleased with, including this one. You can see the center of our galaxy and, that bright, red light to the bottom left is Mars, at the time its closest to Earth in years. The trails of two satellites are also seen. The glow on the horizon is light from Granby and Winter Park.

Ideally this would have been taken later at night / earlier in the morning during a new moon and in a bit more remote location, something I am going to be trying to do in the coming weeks. But, given the situation, I think this came out pretty good. I did goof and forget to take off my polarizer filter which meant a higher ISO than what would have been needed otherwise and haze from wildfires in California had an impact as well.

Escaping to Colorado’s high country affords you peace and quiet away from the busy Front Range and at night, goodness, the stars you can see are breathtaking.

On this particular evening a couple of weeks ago, I took a short hike from where we were camped to take it all in. Looking south across the Moraine Park area, the darkness was all enveloping but with no light pollution, above were millions of points of light. The Milky Way was working its way across the sky and, in this capture, if you look toward the top you will even see a meteor streaking through.

While I certainly took pictures, I also made sure to stop and sit and just look and listen, taking it all in.