Photographing the Milky Way core from Alameda, as laid out in my previous article, requires three major things: A clear night, no moon, and the right time. As I’m sure you know, July saw only one or two half-clear nights. Unfortunately they did not last long enough for the galactic core to be visible.
I wanted to help show that you don’t need a telescope, filters, or speciality gear to take beautiful photos of the night sky. Even with ancient equipment and used gear, astrophotography is still within reach. While planning this article, I had strong tunnel vision which had me convinced that a Milky Way shot was the best, most fun, and the only viable demo. It wasn’t until the night of August 6, as I stood by my window looking at the first fully clear night in over a month that I muttered to myself, “Yeah, but the Moon is full. I guess I can’t take any DSLR pictures after all!”
I think I just needed to hear it out loud. Here was a new, clear opportunity, and I almost missed it because I was so fixated on a hidden target under all the unclear skies.
Sometimes it’s hard to realize that there’s a better opportunity right in front of your face, even when it’s literally the brightest thing you can see.
Early Earth didn’t have a Moon between the first 60 to 250 million years after the formation of our planet. Within that timeframe, it’s likely that some other object hit ours (they refer to it as a hypothetical planet named Theia), ripping off a chunk and digging out a portion of Earth’s iron core. The most recent simulation of this theory projects that from the moment of the collision, the proto-Moon was formed in under 35 million years. Under 35 thousand years, in fact. In less than 35 years, even. It shows that from impact to becoming moon-like was around 35 hours.
While studying the Moon rocks brought back from the Apollo missions, many similarities between the two celestial bodies became evident, but they are not quite the same. That’s why we believe that the Moon is basically our celestial stepchild.
While at Ballena Bay, I decided to try shooting the Milky Way anyway. Believe it or not, I actually can see a little bit of it right next to the Moon. I ran my photo through the free online tool nova.astrometry.net to confirm what I was seeing:
Based on these pictures, it seems like next time there’s a clear night with no Moon I could capture the Milky Way. But you know what? I think I’ll keep my options open.
While on vacation at Timber Cove in 2020, Evan Gomez-Shwartz accidentally photographed the Milky Way with his phone. Since then, he’s been taking photos of outer space at every opportunity possible, now with better equipment. The Alameda-based astrophotographer’s favorite subjects to photograph are nebulae and galaxies. Reach him via [email protected]
