The Best Times of the Year to View the Milky Way in the US Southwest.

I have travelled to many of the Dark Sky sites of the US Southwest, and it takes some planning and a little luck to get great pictures of the Milky Way.

One part of the planning is to visit a dark sky site. There are many sites in the Southwest, which include National and State parks that are designated as Dark Sky sites. You need to check if these sites are open to visitors at night (if not there are probable lookouts and stopping areas that will provide a good viewing site).

The Milky Way is seen in the southern sky and you will need to setup to view the southern sky which hopefully has a nice landscape as a foreground. If not you can take a night picture of the Milky Way and a day picture of the landscape and blend them in a tool like Photoshop.

The core of the Milky Way (the bulge in the Milky Way) is not visible all year round and the best time to see it are in the May to October time frame. In May the core of the Milky Way is not visible until the early morning hours but the viewing of the core will be advancing earlier as the year goes on. In October the core is seen after sunset for an hour or so before it sets below the horizon. You can use an Astronomy SW such as Stellarium to determine the best time to view the Milky Way.

The other consideration is the phase of the moon. Going during a new moon will allow for a darker sky.

The luck part is the weather, where a cloudless night is wanted. In the southwest there is a monsoon season with rainy and cloudy conditions. The monsoon season lasts from July thru August, so I plan my trips around new moons in May and Sept/Oct to try to avoid the clouds.