I just got back from the first star party of the year (for me), in Maupin, Oregon.  Yes, it is rather late, but I’m not sorry!  It was only 3 nights and one of those was cut short by clouds, but the sky was excellent the other 2 nights.  I captured several deep-space targets with both large and small telescopes, but haven’t processed any of those images yet.

But I also got to test the Canon 6D full-frame camera and 24mm f/1.4 lens, which produced this shot of the Milky Way over the star party.  The red lights you see on the ground are from other astronomers (we use only red light to maintain night vision).  Capturing the night sky with the wide-angle lens is much easier than the usual telescope/long exposure image.  You just put the camera on a tripod and shoot a 10 second exposure – done!  Well, in this case I took 5 exposures and merged them into a panoramic photo of the Milky Way that covers almost the entire width of the sky.

The next step is to get a more interesting “foreground” landscape.  For that, I am planning to climb my favorite local mountain and spend the night there.  Not that it will take all night to get the image I want, but I don’t want to hike or drive the narrow mountain road in the dark.  I’ve been planning to do this for years, but now that I have the equipment ready I just need to find a good night for the mission.

I hope to post the other photos from the Maupin star party in a few days, so “stay tuned”!