Milky Way Above Zion National Park by WJMcIntosh

When I made my first trip to Zion back in May of 2016, I knew I wanted to shoot the Milky Way while I was there. After scouting around extensively for ideas, it seemed that the only Milky Way shots I could find were taken from the bridge overlooking the Virgin River and the Watchman facing South. After setting my alarm, I took a quick nap and when I work up, I was surprised to find that the entire arch of the Milky Way was spanning the valley facing East. I took the Watchman shot but promised myself that I would try to find a way to shoot the Milky Way over the entire valley at some point in the future. When I got home, I scouted for more shots and eventually found a photo by Michael Shainblum on 500px which featured an amazing view of the entire valley at sunrise, it suddenly dawned on my that this could make a great Milky Way location as it was facing East over where I had been parked on the road below. I made my next trip to Zion in August of 2016 and met up with Eric Gail. Together we climbed above the valley on the North side and eventually found the spot Shainblum had shot from. Later that night, I climbed up and tried my shot. It turned out to be way too cloudy for the Milky Way, but I did take a couple shots of the light trails from cars entering the valley and then had to head home. And that was it for 2016. While you can still shoot the Milky Way during the Winter in the early morning hours, the full arch and the galactic core don't make a reappearance until April and May of the following year. Fast forward to last Friday night. After waiting several months to give it another try, Eric and I set off again with hopes of getting the shot. We knew we would be looking at a late night as the galactic core wouldn't make it above the South range until after 3 AM. Everything was going very well...until my Nikon D810 died on me right as the Milky Way was moving into position. I had brought a second camera body just in case, but it was back in the car. Scrambling down from my perch, I managed to not die while racing back down the mountainside, grabbing the D750 and scrambling back up. I was just starting to feel hopeful again when I realized that I no longer had the right remote for the camera. Having been limited to 30 second exposures on earlier trips, I knew that I would be dealing with way too much noise if I pushed the ISO high enough to get detail about of the very dark valley floor. Since I was out of options at this point, I ended up taking several 2 and 3 minute exposures by setting the camera to bulb mode and simply holding my finger down very careful on the shutter release button. It was probably around 3:30 AM by the time I headed back down to join Eric who was already shooting the Milky Way in the valley below. All of this to say that after 8 months of waiting, I finally got the shot. I layered in several exposures here to include the light trail from the cars below, the detail in the canyon and the shorter 25-30 second exposures for the Milky Way. Light was already creeping into the sky as we headed off to the Alabama Hills. -------------- Thank you so much for your views and comments! If you have specific questions please be sure to send me a message via flickr mail, or feel free to contact me via one of the following: Blog | Website | Facebook | Instagram | 500px | Twitter | Google + http://flic.kr/p/SW4wXV