RETROSPECTS 2020 - #12

Milky Way, Medicine Rocks State Park, Montana

I’m ending my retrospects not with a photo from December last year. For actual reasons I show you another image from Medicine Rocks State Park in eastern Montana, taken in September 2020. In December, the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) designated Medicine Rocks State Park in Montana a certified International Dark Sky Sanctuary. There are now 14 dark sky sanctuaries worldwide.

I consider myself a beginner for night photography. I’m looking into that for quite some time but I’m often discouraged by the light pollution we face most of the time, even in a not so densely populated area like here in eastern Iowa. Back in Montana last year it was just amazing and I’m not sure if any picture can reflect how gorgeous it really was. I have seen impressive skies before, for example back in the mid 80’s during backpacking tours in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania in southeastern Europe, but dark places like that become rare. We camped in Medicine Rocks State Park for two nights but only during the first the skies revealed some of their secrets…

If you followed patiently my retrospect series I like to thank you. I enjoyed sharing some of the photographic moments of 2020 with you again and I hope it helped to overcome the daily worries that might be larger than usual for some of you these days.

MOON AND CLOUDS IN MOTION

Moon light and clouds over Little Missouri National Grassland, North Dakota

Most nights during our trip out west we had moon light giving the landscape some shape. That was great and led to opportunities for night photography. The downside, as everybody knows, is making the Milky Way the subject of an image, this was not an option, except for the days at the end of the trip.

We had this National Forest campsite just outside of Theodore Roosevelt National Park almost for ourselves. When the moon light touched the fence, that was there to keep the cattle out, and clouds moved fast across the sky, I tried a 69 second exposure to make the dynamic in the sky visible. The light reflected by the fence leads into the picture. The stars show already a little trail. I have more photos with shorter exposure time and blending two pictures together would be an option, but I still like how this turned out.

ENDLESS SKY

This is the tent of a campsite neighbor at Sage Creek Campground in Badlands National Park. We had of course no control over the brightness of the light in their tent but I gave it a try anyway and included the sky with all its stars. The campground is in a remote location but there is unfortunately still some light pollution from the town of Wall, known for the “World famous Wall Drug store”.

If I remember this right, we had only two or three nights without seeing the stars during our trip through the Dakotas, but in the Badlands we probably enjoyed it the most.

A black background may help to view this image, and if you click on the photo you can see all the stars that were recorded by the sensor in the camera.