2024 In the Mirror: The Night Sky

Silent Night, Milky Way Above Lake Wakatipu, New Zealand
Sony a7R V
Sony 14mm f/1.8 GM
ISO 6400
f/1.8
13 seconds

This is my third and final post looking back at my 2024 photography experiences. Next up: 2024 Highlights—my favorite images of the year.

My relationship with the night sky predates my photography life. In fact, for most of my photography life, cameras weren’t even capable of capturing dark skies well enough to do them justice. That changed with the advent of digital capture, and the evolution of digital sensors that continues to this day.

My love for astronomy was powerful enough that I made it my major when I entered college—and also why I decided to change that major as soon as I found myself actually resenting the quantification of concepts that I simply wanted my mind to be boggled by (I’m fairly good at math, but not astrophysicist-good). Since then, I’ve been much happier simply gazing skyward and pondering the incomprehensible time and distance each pinpoint of starlight represents. Turns out, photography enhances the night sky experience. Not only do my cameras reveal detail and color my eyes can’t see, night photography’s multi-second exposures provide ample time to gaze and ponder.

Though every year includes many night sky experiences, 2024 was especially memorable for a couple of reasons. First, it included each my favorite night subjects: Milky Way, northern lights, the moon, and (especially) a comet (!). The other thing that made my 2024 night sky photography extra special was that my (non-photographer) wife joined me for my two favorite shoots: the Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS shoot above Mt. Whitney in October, and my Milky Way shoot at Tasman Lake in New Zealand in July.

Northern Lights

Northern Lights and Big Dipper, Vik, Iceland

The northern lights shoot happened in February, midway through this year’s Iceland workshop that Don Smith and I partner on. Even though the aurora is the top priority for this workshop, it’s also the least reliable of my night sky “big four.” While every night shoot requires clear skies, unlike the other celestial phenomena I target, an aurora is about as reliable as the weather—I can plan a workshop a year or more in advance knowing exactly where the moon, Milky Way, and sometimes even a noteworthy comet, will be, but with the northern lights we just have to schedule and hope. Hope that solar activity tickles the magnetosphere, and hope the skies are clear if it happens.

In the half dozen or so times Don and I have done this trip, we’ve only been shut out once, but for a while it looked like this year would be number two. The aurora forecast was decent—the weather? Not so much. But on the day of our longest drive, from Snaefellsnes Peninsula to Vik, both forecasts improved slightly. After three days of clouds and snow flurries that were about to transition into a major storm, the new forecast promised a small window of clear sky that might last into the beginning of the aurora window. Instead of going straight to dinner upon our arrival in Vik, we beelined up to a cemetery above town and waited, one eye on the northern horizon, the other on the clouds approaching from the south.

As you can see, the clouds held off just long enough. And while we didn’t get the dazzling full-sky display of some prior trips, the lights did dance enough to thrill.

Moonrise/Moonset

Moonrise, Half Dome, Yosemite

My two favorite moon shoots also happened early in the year, first with a moonset in Death Valley and the Alabama Hills in January, followed by a couple of February moonrises in Yosemite. Since I’m no stranger to photographing the moon in these locations, for me the highlight of these experiences was sharing the with my workshop groups.

That said, both the Alabama Hills and Tunnel View shoots were especially nice this year. In the Alabama Hills, my Death Valley workshop group watched a waning gibbous moon, still nearly full, slip behind Mt. Williamson (California’s second highest peak) just as the sun’s first rays pinked up a gauzy layer of clouds.

The Yosemite moonrise looked like it was going to be erased by clouds—especially disappointing as this moonrise aligned so perfectly with Half Dome. But much to the thrill of everyone, the offending clouds thinned and parted at just the right time.

Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS

I’ve written about this shoot already, both shortly after it happened, and again in the first post of this series.

Milky Way

Silent Night, Milky Way Above Lake Wakatipu, New Zealand

Usually I get a couple of Grand Canyon Milky Way experiences each year, first on my raft trip in May, then again in my monsoon workshop in summer. But this year clouds wiped both of those out. That loss was more than made up for on the Puna Coast in my Hawaii workshop, and (especially) in New Zealand. You can read about the Hawaii Milky Way experience here.

Of all my annual Milky Way shoots, the one that excites me most is New Zealand, my only opportunity to view the spectacular Southern Hemisphere sky. In addition to the unique sky, pristine air and minimal light pollution makes New Zealand an inherently great place for Milky Way photography, and this year was especially memorable. I’ve already written about the amazing night my wife and I spent with the Milky Way above Tasman Lake, so today I’m sharing a new image (above) from the last night of the New Zealand South Island workshop Don Smith and I do each year.

From the aurora in Iceland to the Milky Way in New Zealand, you have no idea how much Don and stress about delivering celestial phenomena completely out of our control. In New Zealand we have a number of go-to Milky Way spots throughout the workshop. Since it’s winter, clouds are fairly common, but we also nine nights, so when clouds rule one night, we just cross our fingers and hope the next night will deliver. But this year we struck out all the way up to our final night, so our stress level was peaking. (We go no push-back from the group—they understood that we have no control over the conditions and appreciated how hard we were trying to make it work. This was all self-induced stress.)

The workshop’s last full day had a lot of clouds and a little blue sky, but nothing if not optimistic, we were going to give the Milky Way a shot no matter what. After our sunset shoot, we drove straight to our Lake Wakatipu spot and waited for the sky to darken. By the time we arrived the clouds had cleared wonderfully, and I knew it was just a matter of time before our group would understand that all my raving about the New Zealand night sky isn’t just hyperbole.

New Zealand Night, Milky Way and Small Magellanic Cloud, Tasman Lake (2024)

These nights, when I know it’s just a matter of time before the sky delivers and there’s absolutely nothing to stress about, are some of my favorite times with my workshop groups. Waiting for the sky to darken, we just stand (or sit) around chatting and laughing—especially on the final evening of a 10-day workshop, when genuine friendships have formed—watching the landscape fade and the stars slowly pop out. The camera will “see” the Milky Way before we do, so every few minutes I click a frame to monitor its progress. At some point I’ll tell the group it’s time to start shooting, and not long after that it becomes dark enough for the Milky Way to be clearly visible to our eyes too.

For a while after we can see it, the Milky Way seems to get brighter and brighter against the still darkening sky. In New Zealand, I always keep a lookout for the Magellanic Clouds, two small satellite galaxies, bound by gravity to our Milky Way but not visible in the Northern Hemisphere. When they appear, I know the darkness is complete.

Since most of my time during these shoots will be occupied helping people, by the time everyone has started shooting, I have my composition in place, my camera focused, and my exposure set. That way I can just click a frame each time I pass my camera on my way to help the next person. This also frees me to just gaze and ponder, as I’ve always done when the sky is dark and stars are out, and as I will forever do.

Experience the New Zealand night sky for yourself

2024 After Dark

Click any image to scroll through the gallery LARGE

New Zealand Night, Milky Way Over Tasman Lake

Through the Clouds, Tunnel View Moonrise, Yosemite

Sunrise Moonset, Mt. Williamson, Alabama Hills (California)

Silent Night, Milky Way Above Lake Wakatipu, New Zealand

Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS and Mt. Whitney, Alabama Hills, California

Milky Way Reflection, Puna Coast, Hawaii

Moonrise, Half Dome, Yosemite

Night Moves, Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS and Mt. Whitney, Alabama Hills

Star Spangled Night, Milky Way and Tasman Lake, New Zealand

Lunar Reflection, Half Dome, Yosemite

Northern Lights and Big Dipper, Vik, Iceland

Dante’s Moon, Badwater, Death Valley

Heaven Sent, Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS Above the Sierra Crest, Alabama Hills