Our recent vacation to the Badlands and Black Hills in South Dakota and Devil's Tower in Wyoming provided some spectacular clear night sky photography results. Above, the sun peeks over the eastern horizon at 6:28 am MDT on Sunday, September 17, 2017, as seen from the Badlands Door trail in Badlands National Park in South Dakota. This is a HDR image.
Back to the same location but looking the opposite direction and at 4:12 am on Monday, September 18. Getting used to moving about in the creepy pitch black conditions along the Badlands Door Trail at this hour, I set up in an optimum area to capture the Milky Way, which stood out in breathtaking detail in the clear star-spangled sky. Sue Alliss provided a light painting effect by moving about 70 yards closer to the rock pinnacles seen in the background and playing a flashlight from left to right across them. This image captured was achieved with the use of a
Tokina AT-X Pro DX II lens. It is a 20 second exposure at f/2.8, 5000 ISO and 11mm focal length. The bright star at bottom right of the Milky Way is the magnitude 0.00 Vega in the constellation Lyra.
About an hour and a half later (5:44 am) and turning my attention east again, I had the wonderful opportunity to capture a not-so-frequent celestial conjunction above a scenic foreground element.
Glittering in the pre-dawn sky were, from bottom left: -0.92 magnitude planet Mercury, 1.82 magnitude planet Mars, the crescent moon, 1.34 magnitude star Regulus and the -3.94 magnitude planet Venus. Adding to the scene was a ground fog shrouded along the horizon in the background. This image was captured with my AF-S Nikkor 18-55mm kit lens.
Moving on to Devil's Tower National Monument in northeast Wyoming on Monday, September 18. Our location was at a local KOA just outside the gates of the grounds. The skies during the day were clear here and promised a fantastic night sky photo opp hours later. I soon experienced how fast a clear skies can turn overcast in these parts. In the above image, captured at 9:53 pm MDT, one can see quickly approaching clouds. I had wanted to get a good dark sky and the Milky Way to be close to Devil's Tower, but was only able to fire off this shot before the entire sky became obscured with clouds a short time later. In this image, a 20 second exposure at f/2.8, 5000 ISO and 11mm focal length, Devil's Tower is about .8-mile distant. Image looks WSW.
Opting to use my "body clock" only, I woke up several times later, and around 2:00 am September 19, the skies were once again relatively clear. The Milky Way had now moved right of Devil's Tower. Using the same exposure settings as previously except for focal length (16mm), this image was captured at 2:19 am. The bright object at right is the 0.00 magnitude star Vega, in the constellation Lyra.
Now on to Custer State Park in South Dakota. 12:06 am, Thursday, September 21. Stockade Lake--near where our camp cabin was located--provided for another spectacular foreground element with the Milky Way in the distant sky. This was also another creepy dark setting where every sound could be a mountain lion! This image, looking west from the eastern shore of Stockade Lake, is a 20 second exposure (Tokina lens) at f/2.8, 4000 ISO and 11mm focal length. The background glow is from the town of Custer, about four miles distant.
Later in the day (8:24 pm) and at our camp cabin. Looking northeast at the Milky Way. In this image our cabin was light painted by Sue Alliss, with a quick burst of the flashlight. Settings and lens were the same as the lake capture above it.
8:29 pm and looking the opposite direction. Same settings and lens. Stars in the skies here were such a contrast to those in Eastern Iowa, where only the brightest are seen due to light pollution. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.
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