With the season for the Milky Way galactic core being in full swing, Emerson and I decided to trek out to our local dark sky site to capture the universe above.

The best time to view the Milky Way, during any time of year, is around the New Moon. However, aligning this with clear skies is a whole other story! Fortunately, we had a clearing after numerous days of rain. When we arrived at our location, mosquitoes were as ravenous as ever. We highly recommend wearing long sleeves and bringing some sort of repellent – especially in Central Florida. Humidity was also fairly high, which has the potential to fog up camera lenses, yet this can be combated with electrical heaters or air-activated hand warmers.

Having set up our gear, Emerson focused on capturing an elegant landscape photo of a gravel road leading toward the Milky Way while my camera took a sequence of photos directed toward a specific area within the constellation Sagittarius. The resulting 1.5 hours of exposure time brought out many vibrant colors and structures. From the left side of the image, the star-dense region of the golden galactic core gradually fades in. In the center is the Lagoon nebula, a strong HII region – making it an emission nebula. Lastly, on the right is the Trifid nebula. It is the combination of emission, reflection and dark nebula!

The Milky Way season is an exciting time for photographers and observers alike. We encourage you to visit a nearby dark sky site when the conditions are right. Viewing thousands of stars, our beautiful galaxy, and potentially numerous meteors is well worth the drive.