The Story Behind Galactic Cave
It wasn’t easy getting to this cave on a frigid night in February!
I photographed this view of the Milky Way from a sea cave back in February of 2015, but it had been in the planning for about 2 years.
A lot of things needed to come together for this to work. It had to be early in the year (at the start of “Milky Way season” where I live in Maine) in order to even see the Milky Way from inside the cave. I also needed clear skies during the new moon when the tide was low enough to get in and out of the cave.
All those things came together on this frigid night, except for some clouds that obscured the lower part of the Galactic Center of the Milky Way. It was bitterly cold and very windy, but of course there was no wind once I was inside the cave. I think the ambient temp was somewhere around 0F, but much colder with the windchill while I was making my way down to the cave.
But before I could take this photo, I needed to scout the cave first in daylight. I had to make sure it would be safe getting there through the deep snow and ice covered rocks, and see if the view from the cave would even look in the right direction to see the Milky Way.
To get to this location I had to snowshoe through knee and waist deep snow down the hillside through the woods to the shore, slide down what was essentially a frozen waterfall of a drainage stream from the woods down to the rocks next to the ocean, then put on traction spikes to cross the ice covered rocks and carefully make my way over to and inside the cave. Then I would have to do it all again, alone in the dark at 3am, when it was roughly 0F degrees and windy.
Normally I plan my Milky Shots (or any landscape shot) using PhotoPills, an app available for iOS and Android devices. But on the 2D planning map it was hard to know where the cave was, let alone the exact direction it faced. So to really know if it would work I needed to be inside the cave. Standing at the opening to the cave I could use the augmented reality feature of PhotoPills, which lets me see the position of the Milky Way overlaid on the live view through the iPhone camera. I also double checked with a compass, knowing the heading that the Milky Way would start at once the Galactic Center was up above the horizon.
You’ll notice that there’s a lot of color in the sky, including orange light from light pollution from towns up the coast, some green from airglow, and the reddish color might also be airglow.
Nikon D800E with Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens @ 17mm. Like most of my night photos, this is a blend of multiple exposures to get the scene in focus and well exposed from the foreground to the stars. Technically 13 exposures were used to create this final image. 10 exposures of 10 seconds each at ISO 6400 were used for star stacking of the sky. Those exposures were stacked using Starry Landscape Stacker for Mac that aligns the images and averages out the noise, and with 10 second exposures the result is pinpoint stars with low noise. You can also do this in Sequator on Windows. You can learn more about this in my free webinar or my book Night Sky Photography: From First Principles to Professional Results.
Then 3 other exposures were used for the foreground at ISO 1600 and at different focus distances, f-stops, and exposures lengths to capture a low noise and in focus foreground, all shot in the same place on the same night without moving the tripod. The image that results from the star stacking is then blended with all the foreground images to create the final image that has low noise and is in focus from the foreground to the stars.
Join my Maine Milky Way workshops to learn how all this is done! I can’t take you to this cave, but I can take you to other amazing spots!
2026 Maine Milky Way Workshops
Join me under the stars on my 2026 Maine Milky Way workshops! These are all held in Lubec, Maine, 2 hours east of Acadia National Park.
Jul 14-17 (3 nights)
Aug 11-14 (3 nights)
Sep 8-11 (3 nights)
Come explore the Bold Coast of Maine! These workshops focus on Milky Way photography but we will also capture dramatic sunsets with rugged coastline, lighthouses, and lobster boats as our foreground. There are also opportunities to photograph wildlife including bald eagles, seals, porpoise, and whales.
You’ll get 10% off lodging as part of the workshop.
I’m holding my first ever winter workshops! These are also held in Lubec, Maine, 2 hours east of Acadia National Park.
Very Late Season Milky Way & Maybe Winter Landscapes
Dec 12-15, 2025 (3 nights)
For this workshop the Milky Way Galactic Core will not be fully visible but we will be able to get the fainter part over West Quoddy Head Lighthouse. We will also focus on other daytime landscapes. See the workshop page.
Jan 12-15, 2026 (3 nights)
Feb 11-14, 2026 (3 nights)
The Jan/Feb workshops are my first ever fully winter workshops where we will focus on lighthouses, landscapes, and fishing boats. Hopefully we will have snow and sea smoke! This is for hearty folks who can stand being out in the cold! Dress warm! See the workshop page.
2026 Newfoundland Iceberg Workshops!
I only have one spot left on each of my May 2026 Newfoundland workshops!
Join me for the adventure of a lifetime on the Canadian island of Newfoundland during peak iceberg season. Each spring icebergs from Greenland and Labrador show up along the northern coast of Newfoundland after making the two year journey. We’ll also photograph dramatic landscapes, iconic fishing villages, puffins, and more.
I have two different workshops scheduled:
Twillingate - Fogo Island - Bonavista
May 25 - June 1, 2026 (7 nights, 8 days)
5 spots total, 1 spot remaining
This workshop will start in Twillingate, one of the regular hot spots for icebergs in Newfoundland. We’ll then spend a couple nights on Fogo Island capturing more icebergs and iconic red fishing sheds, then head over to Bonavista for a lighthouse, icebergs, and puffins that can be photographed from land!
Learn more here!
Iceberg Chaser RV Trip
May 11 - 18, 2026 (7 nights, 8 days)
3 spots total, 1 spot remaining
For the truly adventurous, follow me around in your own RV or rent one! We’ll have an open schedule and go wherever the best icebergs are and catch some amazing landscapes. We will likely visit the Great Northern Peninsula, Gros Morne National Park, and probably Twillingate or other spots on the north coast. Maybe we’ll even head over to Labrador for a night or visit the massive gannet colony in Cape St. Mary’s!
Learn more here!
Night Sky Photography Book
My book Night Sky Photography: From First Principles to Professional Results is an Amazon best-seller and has almost 500 ratings! Thanks everyone!
Free Milky Way Crash Course Webinar
My free Milky Way Crash Course webinar is back up for viewing! Many of you have seen this already, but if you haven’t it can get you up and running with Milky Way photography pretty quickly. It covers camera gear, camera settings, shooting with stacking and exposure blending in mind, and planning basics.