This photo was taken in early May in Joshua Tree National Park during a new moon weekend. We spent the weekend nights photographing the night sky from 10 pm to just after 4 am, but it was such a beautiful night that we could not bring ourselves to call it a night or, in this case, a morning.

The Milky Way Galactic Center was visible that weekend from 10 pm to 4 am, but the Milky Way itself was still visible as we started back to our vehicles closer to 5 am. We still had almost an hour before sunrise, which would wash the night sky away.

Just after passing Wonderland Ranch Ruins along the trail back to where we had parked, I noticed the Milky Way was still barely visible as Blue Hour had just started. I set my tripod in front of this crazy-looking Joshua Tree just off the trail and took a 30-second exposure.

When photographing the Milky Way, a 25 or 30-second exposure seems quick when you normally have a star tracker set up and have been taking 3-minute exposures most of the night. I really didn't think I would get much of a photo, but when I got home and loaded the image into Lightroom and saw that the Milky Way was still there and that I had the blues and purples in the night sky, I was excited and pleased with the photo that I had taken.

Milky Way season is back again, and I will be out shooting all night and morning very soon. One of the best things about photographing the night sky in Joshua Tree National Park at 2 am is that the people you run into are just as crazy as you. I have developed some great friendships with other photographers I bumped into while photographing the night sky in Joshua Tree National Park.