Night Sky Experiment

Hi all,
I don't get out here as often as I should, and I post even less, as most of my shots end up being urban, due to my location. But I tried to shoot the Milky Way and thought I'd post it. Needs some work, the school house is too soft and noisy and I need to find a place with less light pollution. Does any one have any suggestions of good dark sky places in Kansas?
Thanks for looking.

I like it. It looks like a good location to me. One thing I would suggest is to consider light painting the school. A flashlight or any old flash does the trick. I use an Orange or yellow gel I cut from a plastic folder set I bought at Walmart.

It is pretty cool what you can do with a 30 second exposure and a flash.

Gave fun. Post more!!

I like this Dena. At first I thought the orange streak was a fire line but in retrospect I believe it is car headlights passing by the old schoolhouse. I hear that the area around Waterville in north central KS is pretty good for dark sky stuff. Check out Scott Bean's night sky stuff from there.

Thanks for the suggestions gentleman, I'll give the painting and the location a try.

nice take on the school house, and not bad for a first try. For dark skies, come west, to central and western Kansas :). However, it is still hard to find a good spot without at least a little light pollution.

This looks pretty good at this size, Dena, the milky way shows up nicely. It's surprizing how much the distant city lights show up though at long exposures. That must be Emporia? How long was your exposure? I agree with Rob, I am not familiar with KC area but out west there are still some pretty dark areas. The darkest I have experienced was at Clark County Lake, southeast of Dodge City.

Dena, excellent work, can you give the details of your shot? exposure, iso, etc.

Looks pretty good to me...that old schoolhouse makes a great subject. Nicely done, Dena.