Cherry Springs State Park Milky Way

When two wide-angle f/1.4 lenses promoted as ideal for photographing the milky way (an addicting pursuit) show up in the same box with a dark, cloudless sky predicted for the next evening, you drop everything and drive hours to the darkest sky location in the region. In this case, that location was Cherry Springs State Park, an International Dark Sky Park, near Coudersport, PA. After a few hours of sleep and especially after loading the photos from the memory cards, you forget about arriving home at 2:30 AM.

The two lenses were the Sigma 20mm F1.4 DG DN Art Lens and the Sigma 24mm F1.4 DG DN Art Lens. The 20 and 24mm ultra-wide-angle focal lengths are ideal for framing the heart of the milky way, and the ultra-wide f/1.4 aperture allows sufficient light to reach the imaging sensor in the exposure time necessary to prevent star trails.

Here is the Cherry Springs State Park Milky Way at 24mm.