Photographing the Night Sky

On a cold, but clear February day, I made a hasty decision to make a short trip to the Okefenokee, for one reason: to capture the night sky on film. I knew this wouldn’t be easy. It is hard to do this with a digital camera, but with film, your odds are decreased ten-fold. I had shot the night sky with film before. My results were pretty good, but I really needed more to go on. More information on line. But, there were only a few videos at best. Sure, there were plenty of videos about capturing the night sky with a digital camera, but few on using film.

The reason I left Augusta in haste was because there were going to be a few days of clear and cold weather. Also, the moon was at the 3rd quarter phase, meaning it was half full. Using previsualization, I imagined setting up my large format camera looking north, down the canal by the visitor center. Capturing Polaris (the North Star) and the other stars circling around it like bees to the queen. With the canal in the foreground and the silhouettes of the cypress trees, this could be a great shot. “Could be” are the optimum words here.

The first night had a low temperature of 27 degrees. That is cold, even for a Wisconsin-born person. But, add wind and now you are talking very cold! But, I was determined. I set up my cameras in two locations ahead of time, before the sun went down. This helped me line up my focus and get my composition before it was too dark. By 8PM, when the sun was far enough below the horizon, I had true darkness and clicked the shutter on both cameras. For this type of photograph you leave the shutter open for hours. My goal was to try six hours, which meant very little sleep and numbing cold, but as I say, I was determined. I sat and watched for a few hours, making trips to the car and shelter from the wind every thirty minutes. After about 1.5 hours a car came down the roadway and splashed light onto the area I was shooting. It was probably two teens, and they parked just a short distance from one of my cameras. I felt like all that light had ruined that shot for sure. So, I packed everything up and headed back to the cabin in frustration. I decided to wait till midnight and try again. This time, hopefully there would be no more visitors. After about a two-hour nap, I bundled up in my overalls and heated vest to set things up again. Now, without the sun to help me compose and focus, I felt blind. When they say this is a dark sky park, they really mean it! Oddly, every so often I’d see blinking light around me, almost like a distant strobe. It turns out that because the Okefenokee is so remote and so separated from light pollution, that when a plane flies over at 30,000 feet, the light from the plane makes its way to me on the ground.

Using my flashlight, I aimed it onto some distant trees and tried my best to focus in such dark conditions. Even with the bright light shining ahead of me, it still looked very dim on the ground glass of my camera. Always have a back up. My backup was my second camera which was set up on a boardwalk about a half mile away. That camera had been working since 8PM with no interference and I hoped it would be fruitful. At midnight, I left my cameras alone and headed back to the cabin for sleep. I was so cold that I literally pulled off my shoes and crawled under the covers completely clothed in my outdoor jacket and overalls. The moonrise would happen at 1:20AM, so I set my alarm for 2AM. This would give me enough time to get just a splash of moonlight on the foreground and then call it a morning, literally. When 2 came, I hit the snooze. When 3 came, I hit the snooze yet again. Finally, at 4:45 after many delays while I stayed warm in my bed, I got up and went to check on my cameras.

By now, I could see everything with the moon high over head. There was a poetic glow, almost like you’d see during the golden hour of daylight. Boats lined up in the bay which would look boring and drab during daytime looked like a painting. The water took on a very blue hue, and even though it was still cold, I became excited by the new light.

By 5:30 AM I decided to wrap up. To the East, I could see the glow of the sun waiting anxiously to appear. Once it rose above the horizon, the light would be too much and my shots would be overexposed. In the woods, as I walked down the boardwalk to get camera number two, it was still eerily dark. To keep my vision from being overpowered by my flashlight, most of the time I simply let my eyes adapt to the darkness. Within about ten minutes I could see everything and now that the moon was up, light streamed into the forest. As I walked slowly ahead, Spanish moss brushed against my face. I jumped back in surprise. I heard two barred owls chanting in the distance, but like the depth of the darkness, the depth of night meant the world was very quiet, especially in the Okefenokee. With no other noise, every footstep I made on the boardwalk seemed amplified. I picked up the pace and came to the best part of the night, the open prairie where camera number two had been sitting for at least six hours. The view was immense. With the moonlight I could see all the dead, vertical trees in front of me. In the water just below the boardwalk the moon shone onto lily pads creating an almost surreal painting in my mind. But, even though there was beauty all around me, I was tired, it was time to go to bed.

My head hit the pillow yet again just as daylight was dawning outside my window. The shades were down and I felt like a worker just getting off of third shift. I needed sleep and drifted off quickly.

The next night I tried the same thing, but this time, without the wind to move the air, frost settled on my cameras and covered the lenses in ice. If this happened early in the evening, I’d have nothing but blurry, soft images. If it was later, just maybe I’d have something on the film. With hesitation and anxiousness combined, I processed my negatives and was happy to see that about 85% of the images I photographed turned out. The star trails circling around Polaris were visible and thanks to the moonlight, you could also see the foreground.

The night view in the Okefenokee is truly magical. People from all over the world venture here to see the dark sky. Astrophotographers set up expensive, technical cameras to capture amazing views of distant stars. But, unfortunately, the dark night sky is becoming rarer and rarer around our world thanks to light pollution. All it would take is a development outside of the refuge borders to corrupt this very special view. A view that grounds us and gives insight as to how small we are in the grand scheme of things.

Lily pads and moonlight

Star trails over the prairie

Polaris and swirling stars along canal heading to Billy's Lake