Nightscapes: A Trial Run at
Cherry Springs State Park

So much is, whether we acknowledge it or not. Whether we know it or not. As we carry on as the terrestrials we are, there above us… infinitely more. Tonight I pointed my camera upward in an attempt to take a piece of that more, a dress rehearsal in advance of my trip into the dark of western Texas. I traveled far for the chance at troubleshooting my skills and equipment and for the guidance of a professional dark sky photographer who lead the class under the darkest sky east of the Mississippi at Cherry Springs State Park in Coudersport, Pennsylvania.

With the risk of the class being cancelled if conditions were not clear, I obsessively checked Clear Dark Sky. Thank goodness it would be a clear Saturday night!

Almost there!

I arrived well before nightfall to check things out in the daytime and found some early astroexcitement and a Ranger (at least I think she was a Ranger) who answered all of my eager questions.

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The park has a lot of free special events throughout the year.

Across from the public side of the park is the professional astronomers side, managed by the International Dark-sky Association. All this means is that the door to this area is locked once the sun sets so avoid light traffic. Light traffic would bother us during our class… cars, clueless visitors, etc.

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My class would spend most of the three hours we had of shooting in this field as the foreground options are more interesting, like these cool white pods. They are old astronomical equipment of some sort that will soon be removed as they are not functioning anymore. I kind of like them, though they are not the overnight pod rentals I thought they were.

To cut down on pesky white light sources, the Park has available red cellophane and rubber bands. Red light does not mess with your eyes adjustment to the darkness, but I thought it was just as annoying!

It was finally time. Here is my set-up and instructor, Curt Weinhold, hurrying around helping us with the settings. He was so gracious, patient and helpful. After allowing me to partake in the class despite its full registration and his vicarious excitement for my April adventure in Texas, he was the perfect instructor. He knew what we were looking at and how to best shoot it.

Luckily my photography classes had me a bit more knowledgable about how to use my camera. The first thing we had to to do was manually focus our cameras to Infinity, this allows the camera to focus on a much wider depth of field–the entire frame. I set my aperture to F2.8, as wide open as it could be. Shutter speed I played with throughout the night but no less than 15 seconds.  My ISO was set to 3200 and my White Balance was mostly set to Tungsten. More setting discoveries later on.

So most astrophotographers do post-processing in PhotoShop / Lightroom but I haven’t experimented in that realm yet. So you are going to see the raw shots I took. For a first go, I am very pleased!

My first shot! You can see Orion’s belt.

After many dark shots I realized an ISO sensitivity setting I had played with during my last photography class had been left at “Auto.” These shots were very dark until I turned that off.

But before that discovery, the International Space Station was flying above us, making us all scream. I was happy to have caught it!

So amazing to see.

So here is before the ISO sensitivity auto feature was shut off…

…and here is after!

The sky was completely full and my camera was capturing it. I was very excited!

So here is that pesky red light messing with my pictures, though it looks kind of cool. Also in my shots, passing planes, though they look like shooting stars.

Those neat pod things

I can’t believe I took these pictures!

We worked our way to the public viewing side, which was boisterous with campers and non-class-taking stargazers.

Here you can see a passing vehicle.

I was so excited for astrophotography success. My classmate pressed the shutter on this one, so that is me and the stars.

And one last one before I hit the hay, in front of my car. Curt told us that there was a good chance of seeing the Milky Way if we returned around 3:00 a.m. Sitting here now, after a good night’s sleep, I wished I would have returned.

But a success all around! I made some astrophotography contacts, saw an amazing dark sky, and learned how to try to capture a small slither of its beauty and wonder. I’ll be back Cherry Springs–and I’m coming to capture the Milky Way. Or a meteor shower… or the aurora borealis… or anything else you got going on up there!