Night Sky in Big Bend

 

The dark night skies of west Texas have been one of the main reasons I visit Big Bend.  Ok, well the entire park in amazing and after visiting 40+ times, I still find new things.  The mountains, desert, river, canyons, animals, birds, sunsets, etc are all top notch.

Then you add in the dark night sky and it adds something.  This is a place you see countless stars.  The milky Way is visible to the eye.  The frequent clear skies make viewing easy.  There is almost zero air traffic in the area.  The nearest city is 250 miles away.  It all adds up to a park that is as magnificent at night as it is in the daytime.  

I try to visit different locations in the park and work the sights and landscapes into a night sky image.  Some call this a Nightscape image.  

This is something that modern digital cameras have made possible. I was a film photographer and specifically a large format film photographer for many years.  I would photograph at night but that meant very long exposures even under a bright full moon.  Typically 15 minutes per image.  I might make 5 exposures in a single night.  It would be weeks before I would see the results.

Now I use a modern digital camera and some fast prime lenses and in less that 30 seconds get an amazing image I see instantly.   I can make many dozens of images per night.  Often with two or three cameras going.

I can use an ultra wide lens, a wide lens and a short telephoto to make different images from the same location.

In Big Bend, that often means photographing locations along the Rio Grande.  When I can put the ribbon of the river in an image with the Milky Way in the sky above really captures the wonder of the night for me.

The second image here is a view over the Rio Grande and you can see view of the desert, distant mountains of Mexico under the Milky Way.

The top image here is a famous landmark- Mule Ears Peak.  I was up at 0300 to catch the Milky Way as it rose over the peaks.

I even do star trails to capture the entire night.  This requires a very stable tripod and hundreds of short images strung together with software.

I generally plan my trips for the new moon now for the darkest sky, but there have been times I have been there under the full moon and then try to work it into the image if I can.

Days and nights here are amazing.  If you go, stay for the night show.