Today I’m presenting the second guest post by my resident astronomer, Evan, the other half of Bamboo Shoots Photography. If you missed our first Los Angeles astrophotography post, check it out here!
I sometimes have the privilege of using the Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory in southern California. When it was built in 1948, its 200-inch primary mirror made it the largest telescope in the world by far. I took a short break from my observing to step outside and snap this 30-second exposure of the Milky Way with the telescope dome. Isn’t the Milky Way gorgeous? Many of its 10 trillion stars are hiding behind the dark bands, called dust lanes, that you see in this photo.
Both of these photos were taken in the middle of a pitch-black, moonless night, so it’s amazing that San Diego’s city lights were able to illuminate these clouds. Want to help an astronomer? Turn off your lights at night!
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