Go HERE to see a photograph of me with my fellow Las Vegas astrophotographers. A brief glance at a satellite photograph of the United States at night quickly reveals that the darkest skies in the country are located in the Southwestern deserts. Of these areas, central Nevada is undoubtedly the very darkest. This fact, combined with the exceptionally dry air and abundant mountain ranges, makes for exceptional conditions to photograph the night sky. I have taken advantage of the dark desert skies of South-Central Nevada to produce color images of very faint nebulae, many of which I had never seen photographed in color before.
All equipment is portable and is transported to the remote photography site.
The site is located at Oak Springs Summit and is accessible via a dirt road off of the Great Basin Highway about 100 miles northeast of Las Vegas. Driving time from Las Vegas is about 2.5 hours. The altitude is 6,500 feet and the site is situated on top of a gently sloped mountain covered with small pine trees and shrub ground cover. These mountains are very much like 'islands' rising above the desert 'sea'. The Milky Way visible to the unaided eye actually corresponds to the isophotes which appear on sky atlases.