Until one Saturday last month, July 26, 2014 to be exact, I had never attempted to photograph the Milky Way. I have seen some great photos online but I had never gone out and figured it out for myself. I had been thinking about getting out and photographing the Milky Way for some time. I did some research on what other photographers had done so I was ready to get out and give it a try. I figured I would set it up as a Meetup for the Night and Low Light Photography Group. As the day got closer the weather reports called for various possibilities of rain and overcast. On the day of the Meetup the weather report called for partly cloudy skies with 20% chance of rain. Not bad odds and as it turned out, very nice because of a storm that came through. This is a composite of five images made while the storm was approaching.

Evening Storm

I was the last one standing out in the storm and I only left when the rain came. Everyone else was in their cars and we all sat hoping the rain would let up. Most got tired of waiting for the rain to stop and the skies to clear so they left. Of the group that started there was only three left including me once the rain stopped. After the rain stopped the skies did clear and the Milky Way did make an appearance. I got out and got set up again and here are some of my first attempts to photograph the Milky Way.

Milky Way with the lights of Harrisonburg, VA.

Milky Way with a few clouds.

Milky Way with a single cloud.

I must admit that I almost left before the skies cleared. I knew that I had a 3 hour drive home but I’m glad I stayed. I learned a few things from this outing (I’ll share that in a post at CreatePhotographics.info in a day or two). Most of all, something that was reinforced here, every now and then you will be rewarded for your patients.