HOW TO PLAN A
MILKY
WAYSHOOT
Tips for choosing locations, timing and creative approaches
to photographing the galactic center above the landscape
Text & Photography By Glenn Randall
T
he best photographs of the Milky Way
show the most photogenic part of this
luminous band of light soaring over a
dramatic landscape. To make such photo-
graphs, you need to go to the right place
at the right time of night and the right time
of year. Here’s how to find and make your
best Milky Way images.
You can photograph the Milky Way any
clear, dark night of the year, but the best
images almost always include the galac-
tic center, the brightest part of the Milky
Way, which is also the region that contains
the most dramatic clouds of gas and dust.
Like any celestial object, the galactic center
appears to rise and set as the Earth rotates.
For any particular location, the angle of
rising and setting is fixed. For example, in
Boulder, Colorado, at 40 degrees north lat-
itude, the galactic center always rises at an
azimuth of 129 degrees (southeast), reaches
its highest altitude, 21 degrees above the
horizon, when it’s due south, and sets at
an azimuth of 231 degrees (southwest).
If you’re planning a shoot in Colorado or
Utah, therefore, try to identify spectacular
landforms that are best viewed when look-
ing in an arc from southeast to southwest.
Several other factors affect the
timing of a Milky Way shoot.
First, choose a clear night. I like the
National Weather Service’s point fore-
casts, found at weather.gov. Enter the
name of the city that’s closest to your
shoot, then refine the forecast by scroll-
ing across a map and clicking on your
exact shooting location. Point forecasts
cover an area of just two or three square
miles, which makes them particularly
valuable in the mountains. In terms of
weather, the summit of 14,259-foot
Longs Peak may as well be on another
planet compared to conditions in Denver
9,000 feet below. The NWS’s point-fore-
cast web pages also contain a link to an
hourly forecast with details on tempera-
ture, chance of precipitation, wind speed
and, most importantly, percentage of the
sky that will be covered by clouds. For
a second opinion on cloud cover, check
out cleardarksky.com.
Second, get as far away from city lights
as possible. For a map of light pollution,
try darksitefinder.com.
Third, choose a night when the moon is
below the horizon when the galactic cen-ter is in the right position. That doesn’t
mean you can only shoot one night a
month, on the night of the new moon.
For example, if the galactic center is posi-
tioned correctly shortly after it rises in the
evening and the moon doesn’t rise until
midnight, you’re good to go. Similarly, if
the galactic center is in the right position
two hours before sunrise and the moon
sets at midnight, you’re golden.
Fourth, plan to shoot between astro-
nomical dusk and astronomical dawn,
the period when the sun is 18 degrees
or more below the horizon and the
sky is as dark as it’s going to get. At
the mid-latitudes, astronomical dusk
occurs between an hour and a half and
two hours after sunset, depending on the
time of year; astronomical dawn occurs
the same amount of time before sunrise.
The Photographer’s Ephemeris (iOS,
Android and desktop), PhotoPills (iOS
and Android) and Sun Surveyor (iOS
and Android), among other apps, provide
information on the times of astronomical
dusk and dawn.
To be most photogenic, the galactic
center should be 10 degrees or moreMilky Way over Mt. Sneffels from County Road 7, Mount Sneffels Wilderness, Colorado. Shot at 4:29
a.m. on May 2, 2014, when the azimuth of the galactic center was 183 and the altitude was 23 degrees.
The bearing to Mt. Sneffels, the highest peak, which is just left of center, is 165 degrees.
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