David Schmidt - Landscape Photography

It's still amazing to me that most people don't realize how wonderful the night sky is. Even without a camera there is nothing like sitting outside at night in a truly dark sky location just to observe the uncountable number of stars and of course the densely packed milky way region. Add a modern camera, a decent lens, and a little practice, and the night sky becomes alive with many more details. My primary goal for this section is to show others those wonderful details.

The most common question I am asked is "were the stars and milky way really that bright?". My answer is of course no, but point out what they are seeing is 100% real, it's just that the modern camera sensor is far superior to viewing dark skies as compared to the human eye.

With my recent purchases of a Star Tracker and and a long zoom lens, I have also started taking Deep Space images. Typically most of these are also visible with the naked eye, but of course will just appear as stars.

So I hope you enjoy these images, but more importantly I hope it inspires you to look up to the heavens. Get away from the city lights and find a truly dark location, sit down, and just look up.

Milky Way and Air Glow over Mt St Helens

Sprit Lake Highway, Washington

Milky Way Over Timberline Lodge

Timberline Lodge, Oregon

Close to God

Davenport, Washington

Window to the Heavens

Fall Mountain Lookout, Grant County Oregon

Milky Way over the Pacific

Brookings, Oregon

Milky Way Eruption

Mount Hood, Oregon

Perseids Meteor Shower

Washington County, Oregon

Alignment of Mars, Venus, and Crescent Moon

Washington County, Oregon

Reflections

Lost Lake (and Mt Hood), Oregon

Dark Sky Country

Northern Arizona

Window to the Moon

Tigard, Oregon

Orion Watching

Eagle Crest Resort, Oregon

Deep Space image of Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters, and Messier 45, is one of the most visible star clusters in the Northern Hemisphere. The cluster is dominated by hot blue luminous stars, with a Reflection nebulae around the brightest stars.

Deep Space image of the Great Orion (M42) and Running Man (NGC 1977, upper left corner) nebulas.

Deep Space image of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31). Also in this image is NGC 205, a dwarf elliptical galaxy, and NGC 221, a dwarf "early-type" galaxy. NGC 205 is in the right upper-center, and NGC 221 is the brightest object below and slightly to the left of Andromeda's core.