Photographer Spent a Week Chasing the Milky Way Across Utah. The Results Show Stunning Rare View
Billions and billions of diamond-like stars emit glitter while swimming inside a monstrous pool of milky light. Four spiral arms twist, rotate, and swirl like a cyclone, tickling the stars and churning the light. Wild curtains of glassy colors rush like paint buckets tipping into the inky black fabric of the night sky, exploding into a storm of colors. In the heart of the teapot-shaped Sagittarius constellation, the supermassive black hole gobbles up hunks of dust and gas, catalyzing orbits of young stars. With so much furor exploding, the Milky Way is an ever-evolving pearl of the cosmic oyster that everyone desires to witness, a glimpse at least. But not everyone does. Blame the city lights.
Their flashy cacophony often blinds the views that otherwise would be clearly accessible to the one standing on the ground. Fortunately, there are some places where the glamor of the Milky Way is still accessible to the naked eye. In Southern Utah, for instance. In a latest series of videos, astrophotographer Derek Culver (@clanger_mcbanger) demonstrated what it feels like to “chase the Milky Way across the skies of Southern Utah.”
Southern Utah offers one of the darkest skies in the world for those who have pledged not to die before witnessing the unfathomable beauty of the home galaxy. Thanks to the dry, arid breeze, isolated caves, secluded Badlands, and concentrations of high-elevation points, it enables the viewer to catch, not mere glimpses, but panoramic views of the beloved Milky Way. When the daylight fades, and these landscapes become drenched in the dreamy cover of the night, cloistered from the dizzying glare of city lights, the night sky jumps forward to reveal itself to the eyes. Wrapped in the canopy of stars, it levitates atop the head, while the feet enjoy the soothing rub of warm sandstone below.
Culver shared a dazzling compilation of photos and videos, freezing the views in memory. Looking at these night skies, he muses, will “change your brain chemistry.” The opening shot, he shared, was recorded by his photographer, Kris Meyer, whose comment suggests that it was taken in Southern Utah’s White Pocket, a monument of rolling sandstone tucked 75 miles east of Kanab. The video shows a rugged cluster of rock sitting in a lagoon, which is shining in a bright wine-red color. Above the rock is an explosion of colorful milky light peppered with glimmering stars.
The following shot zooms to a rocky cluster, enhancing the layered texture of the sandstone, as well as the orange-red palette. Sweeping atop it appears a glowing cloud of frothy material. Another shot in the compilation seems to be recorded in the area’s infamous alcove, the Great Chamber, or the Cutler Point. Snaking through the cave of wind-eroded rock, the towering arc of perturbed stone looks dramatic, moody, and golden-hued. Arrested inside its open belly appears an arc-shaped slice of the Milky Way, flaming with the springy dance of radiant pinks, luminous purples, shy oranges, and ambient goldens. Exaggerating the dance performance, tiny stars shimmer with oomph. At the foot of the arc, the silhouette of a man materializes against the fulgurating yellow light.
The last photo displays the Milky Way strewn across the darkening sky like an upside-down necklace floating in a blue-green lagoon. Basking in its glow, the city seems to have transformed into a silhouette of little violet hills. In the foreground, where the stones succeed in catching light, they appear in restless formations, unsteady, jagged, yet stunning to the eye. Meandering through their restless curves and craggy folds, the water resembles a river of glistening silver.
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