Milky Way and the Northern Lights at Brighton, Utah

This past weekend was quite a good one for me. I was able to go to Silver Lake at Brighton Ski Resort, Utah with a large group of photographers to learn some nightscape photography. Although I feel like I've gotten nightscape photography down pretty good, I thought I'd go along because I just can't pass up an opportunity to go take pictures of the night sky at a beautiful location, and I really wanted to get a good timelapse.




When I first arrived I went to scout out a good, unique location to setup for my timelapse. As I was hiking up the trail I found a spot and started looking around and noticed a cow moose laying in the grass no more than 50 yards from me. My first reaction was to make sure there wasn't a calf nearby and most importantly that I wasn't between the cow and the calf. Fortunately she was by herself and was very relaxed, so I did what any good photographer would do, and that is pull out my camera, switch to my telephoto lens (which I am very glad I took along despite not being useful for night photography). I decided that my perfect spot wasn't worth hanging out with a moose all night so I headed back down the trail only to come across a deer crossing the trail. She was also very calm in my presence, as I got to within 20 yards of her to get her picture.

I then went and found a couple other photographers to hang out with and set up my camera for my timelapse. I'll consider this timelapse my first acceptable timelapse video since my previous one had many technical difficulties, meaning the lens kept fogging up.

After nearly 4 hours of getting pictures for my timelapse I walked around and captured some more of the milky way. On my way down Big Cottonwood canyon I decided to stop and take another picture. When I finally got the photo on my computer I noticed all these pink and green hues to the light. I originally thought it was just some weird light pollution, but another photographer who also captured some odd colors confirmed that it was the northern lights. Holy Crap!! I just captured the northern lights AND the milky way in one photo!! One of my bucket list items is to photograph the northern lights and also to photograph the milky way in many different locations, but not to capture both in one photo. I . am . stoked . That has got to be a very rare occurence.