Photographing the night sky in the strange landscape of New Mexico

In the spring of 2020 I went on a roadtrip to New Mexico. With the pandemic in full swing it was the perfect time to drive to a remote desert and camp away from civilization for a few days. The landscape here looks otherworldly, especially once the sun sets and the stars appear. This is my favorite image from the trip. The bright objects to the left of the hoodoo are the planetary duo of Jupiter and Saturn which were unusually close that night.

The previous night I shot this mushroom-shaped hoodoo standing tall while the Milky Way peeks through the clouds. Typically I aim to have clear skies when shooting the night sky, but I think the thin clouds in this image are adding a lot of interest to the scene. They look as if they were captured during sunset, but they are actually lit by light pollution from a nearby town.

These swirling, eroded sandstone boulders evoke a feeling of standing on a planet from another world and being surrounded by alien creatures emerging from their cracked eggs shells. This area was once covered by an ancient sea and as the water receded it left behind a thick layer of jumbled sandstone, mudstone and shale that lay undisturbed for 50 million years. When 6,000 years ago the last ice age receded it carved the landscape into its current eerie shape.

I'm excited to be able to say the first image has been nominated for the Astronomy Photographer of the Year award organized by Royal Museums Greenwich. A huge honor to just be on the shortlist and I would appreciate if you click here and vote!

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