Milky Way & Henry Mountains

   This Story Behind Every Photograph begins with some short succinct points. Bullet Points don’t work so well on mobile devices, otherwise that would be a perfect means to summarize the timeline of early morning June 24, 2025.

June 24th, alarm set for 2am in Hanksville, UT

Out the door w/coffee by 2:15am

Ink Black darkness, no moon no ground lights

11 miles west on Rt 24 to unnamed gravel path

Gravel path directly across from Factory Butte Rd

Up a 25 + degree incline for appox. 150 ft (more later)

Turned right to a level gravel area

Higher ground mountain-ridge off in the distance

Off to Moonscape Overlook by 4am

   Sharing this image at this point has a two-fold purpose aimed at continuing growth in my new venture into AstroPhotography. 1st, an understanding there is much more to learn and implement. 2nd, to throw down the gauntlet to grow my technique in AstroPhotography having now shared a sub-par image, my first attempt. Details and Story follow below.

   VicMom and I would leave CT on June 16th for a meetup with our two sons and their families. An AirBnB property was secured in Island Park ID giving us access to the Western entrance to Yellowstone National Park in short order. West Yellowstone is much more in keeping with activities for the grandchildren than the Northern entrance where VicMom and I stayed and accessed the park last year.

   We / Earth are but a speck in the enormity of our universe, the stats in the photo below for what lies beyond offer some context. FYI, the Sun is 108 times larger than Earth !

Solar System

   Back here in CT I had done a tremendous amount of research into the areas I wanted to reach for photo opps. I would quickly learn that Milky Way photography here in southern New England during the springtime is rarely possible. Ground light pollution alone, plus the general level of humidity greatly reduces the likelihood of capturing the Milky Way with any clarity. Nevertheless, while still in CT I practiced the progressive steps and camera settings in the hopes of a somewhat easier implementation once in Utah. I fully understood the only hurdle was operator error. I had just purchased the most desirable of lenses for Astro imagery. A super wide Sony 16mm with an extremely fast f 1.8 aperture to maximize the amount of light that could be captured by the camera. The Sony a7CR has the largest sensor size in Sony’s impressive lineup, so I was eager to get the first shot under my belt regardless of a less than stellar end result.

   Utah is my favorite landscape destination, particularly the southeastern area of the state. Two nights were planned in Hanksville, UT. My photo itinerary was ambitious, even by my standards. Many nights leading up to arriving in Hanksville I setup the camera and read over the step-by-step progression from notes kept on my cell-phone. Armed with black coffee and a bit of trepidation rolling around in my head I set-off into the Utah darkness. A convenient gravel path had been explored in the daylight of the previous afternoon. The unmarked path was directly across RT 24 from Factory Butte Rd and could easily be found in the darkness of the Utah night. This would allow seamless access leading out to the next predawn destination, Moonscape Overlook once the astro-photography of the morning was complete.

   The first unexpected event happened as I drove in on the gravel path for about ¼ mile. There was a moderate hill that needed to be traversed to gain higher ground. In daylight I had the benefit of looking out each window to gauge my save passage. Now in the blackness of night even with super-brite LED headlights, the incline of the hill was steep enough so the headlights simply vanished into the darkness of the night sky. I recall thinking partway up the hill, maybe I should turn back. With some reluctance those thoughts were eclipsed by rationalizing I was just on this same hill the afternoon before. I carefully crept up the hill in what seemed a much longer climb that I remembered from the afternoon before. Finally the hill leveled out and I turned to the right as I had done in the daylight. To this point I had not even given the dark skies a glance. A windshield littered with insect remains masked what would soon take my breath away. Without looking skyward I quickly setup the camera on a clear Tuesday night with a steady breeze coming from the East.

   When I finally looked sky-ward I was dumbstruck, I had never seen a sky that looked like what unfolded in front of me. No moon and 11 miles from the nearest town whose population is a mere 200 was a Dark Sky unlike anywhere I’d ever witnessed. The clear sky was alive, the numbers of stars simply astonishing ! As my eyes adjusted to the darkness a faint but clear outline of the actual Milky Way would soon further accentuate my appreciation of the immense space we all so freely take for granted. Any memory of what camera sequence I needed to follow simply lost its place in my head. Any written words will fall far short to describe the inspiration and awe that overcame me…this visceral memory would not soon leave my mind ! As a side bar, there are approximately 200 “Designated Dark Sky Areas” worldwide. Utah claims 26 across the state, the highest concentration of designated Dark Sky areas anywhere on the planet, as seen in the photo below !!

Utah Dark Sky

   The entire Yellowstone vacation was targeted around no moon in Hanksville, UT during our stay. An astro chart suggests the best times during the moon’s monthly cycle and the actual time the “Galactic Core” would be above our horizon. In the case of June 24th, no moon would rise until 4:45 am, and even then the moon would be @ only 1% illumination. The Galactic Core is an enormous black hole essentially filled by dust, gases and a massive amount of stars providing the illumination. My astro chart tells me the core will be above the horizon until 4:19 am when the earth’s rotation will ultimately obscure the core. The Milky Way’s core can be seen here in the northern hemisphere pretty much from March through October. For my interest the Galactic Core is less photogenic around the middle of summer, as seen in my photo. My preference would be early or late in the Milky Way season as the core is more angular or arched and closer to the ground relative to the horizon. June 24^th is only 4 days removed from the summer solstice, and longest day of the year. This would be a perfect time to simply practice when the Milky Way will be near vertical and less complimentary to the landscape that lay in front of me.

   Onto the image itself, I was able to clearly see at least one shooting star. Close examination of the image itself shows multiple shooting stars, because the final image is made of eight 4 second exposures which are then aligned and blended together in post processing software. Four second bursts help reduce noise which is generated when not enough light hits the camera’s sensor. With sunrise nearly 3 hours away there was almost no glow on the horizon separating the dark sky and the Henry Mountains jutting up from the valley floor. I could see where the stars ended but even with the electronic viewfinder set to “Bright Monitoring” mode it was impossible to see where the mountain ridge was in the viewfinder. Angling the camera skyward hoping to include a relative portion of the ground as a reference point became an educated guess at best. Seen in the opening photo my guess was less than I’d hoped for. I would have preferred more of the dark ridgeline, and for more detail in the ink black land mass. These will be challenges to overcome in the future as I dive right into an exciting new genre of photography.

   About 3:45 am I packed up and made my way directly across RT 24 onto Factory Butte Rd for 6.1 miles into Utah’s backcountry. Turning right @ sign post #0913 I would travel another 2.4 miles to a clearing for Moonscape Overlook. The last 1/4 mile I simply crept along as I did not remember the orientation of the cliff’s edge and the road I was on. With no morning glow or moonlight I was in no hurry to be surprised by the direct drop off of more than 1000 ft to the valley floor. A few cars and a camper came into view so I stopped and simply waited for the sun to offer some early light to plan out my spot at the cliff’s edge overlooking “Blue Valley”. Arriving @ 4:20 am allowed for making cellphone notes on the events that took place with the Milky Way shot. In the dark night sky the Big Dipper was directly in front of me and only about 15 degrees off the horizon. A bit after 5 am the horizon began to glimmer as the Dipper faded into the glow of dawn’s early light. Seen in the photo below is the “Morning Star” (aka Venus) a bit off to my right shone brightly in the Eastern sky in the same photo.

Checkout next month’s Story Behind to see what lay beneath the glow of Utah’s backcountry landscape.

Morning Star, aka, Venus