How I created this Milky Way Picture with Old Faithful

Preplanning: Check when there is a new moon and hope that there are clear skies when I go.

When we got to Yellowstone NP, we toured around Old Faithful during the day to determine the best location to see the Milky Way and the eruption of Old Faithful in the same shot. Old Faithful has a boardwalk going around it and this location was at the opposite side from the Lodge, to see both in the southern direction. This was a good location since there were no lights on this side, but bad that we worried about being in the dark with bears (did you know you are able to rent a can of bear spray at the park). Also we got an idea of how often Old Faithful erupts and when at night to be there.

We got to this spot about 12:30am to setup the camera and tripod. I use a Pentax K-3 II camera with the Astrotracer feature. This feature allows the camera to follow the stars for about 1-2 minutes of exposure time before the stars start to streak. For this shot I used a 60 second exposure time. I found the brightest star in the sky to focus my camera on, and then waited for the next eruption.

After Old Faithful began to erupt, I started an exposure time of 60 seconds. As the eruption was at its height, I light painted it for about 5 seconds, to have the water stand out in the picture.

When I got back home, I then used Photoshop to play with the exposure/contrast/whites/blacks to make the Milky Way pop.