Seize the Night, Online! — Announcing the Second Annual Night Photo Summit

We are delighted to announce the second annual Night Photo Summit!

Last winter, we hosted and produced the first Night Photo Summit, a 3-day virtual conference to celebrate everything we love about night photography. It was intense. It was educational. It was fun!

We created the summit as a way to share our passion with you, the community of like-minded photographers who love the night.

Over 350 people joined together for a long weekend of inspiration and camaraderie, and it was such a blast that we knew, even before it was over, that we would do it again in 2022.

Join us from February 4-6, 2022, to experience 3 days of dynamic presentations from 30-plus world class photographers, authors, artists, rangers, an astronomer, and even a meteorologist.

Sessions and Speakers

There are sessions about creativity, dark skies and weather, and of course night photo techniques––image capture, lighting, time-lapse, post-processing and more.

There are classes for all levels, including a Night Photography Fundamentals track, as well as intermediate and advanced level courses, all totaling for over 45 hours of learning and virtual adventure. And we are thrilled to have our friend and world-renowned nature and cultural photographer Art Wolfe share his World at Night project turned book.

There will be panel discussions (including “Women in Night Photography—Challenges and Achievements Under the Stars”), a group image review with the National Parks at Night instructors, and opportunities to connect with the wider community of creative professionals who share a love of night photography.

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Our incredible lineup of speakers and talks includes:

• Adam Woodworth: “Milky Way Crash Course”

• Amir Shahcheraghian: “10 Years of Night Sky Photography in the Desert National Parks of Iran”

• Art Wolfe: “Art Wolfe Presents: Night on Earth”

• Autumn Schrock: “Process to Print: Making Your Night Photos Shine on the Wall”

• Chris Nicholson: “Oceans, Lakes, Rivers and Ponds: Working with Water at Night”

• Colleen Miniuk: “Finding Your Creative Voice”

• Erik Kuna: “Planning a Milky Way Adventure with PhotoPills”

• Forest Chaput de Saintonge: “Deep-Sky Astrophotography with a Telephoto Lens”

• Gabriel Biderman: “Out of this World: Beyond the Basics of Star Trail Photography”

• Gunther Wegner: “Day to Night Transitions: The Holy Grail of Time-lapse Photography”

• Hannu Huhtamo: “Drawing with Light”

• Imma Barrera: “Under the Night Sky as a National Park Artist in Residence”

• Jess Santos: “Building Your Instagram Presence”

• Kah-Wai Lin: “Photographing Auroras and Winter Landscapes”

• Ken Lee: “How to Use Light Painting Angles to Create Detail, Texture and Drama”

• Kevin Adams: “Fantastical Fireflies”

• Lance Keimig: “8 Lessons from Early Night Photographers That Will Make You Better Tonight”

• Matt Hill: “How to Capture and Edit Multirow Night Panoramas”

• Michael DeYoung: “Using the Best Weather Forecasts to Find Clear Skies and Perfect Clouds, Day or Night”

• Michael Frye: “Expressive Night Photography”

• Mike Mezeul II: “Extreme Nature in the Night”

• Nicole Mortillaro: “What to Look Forward to in the Night Skies of 2022”

• Ranger Rader Lane: “Night Skies in our National Parks”

• Rafael Pons: “How to Plan Your Night Sky Photos (Milky Way, Star Trails and Meteor Showers)”

• Royce Bair: “Low-Level Lighting: How to Create Stunning Nightscapes”

• Susan Magnano: “Luminescent Portraits: A Live Demo with Light Writing”

• Tim Cooper: “Creating Realistic Landscape/Milky Way Blends”

• … and more to be announced!

Sponsors & Giveaways

Every attendee will be automatically entered into drawings for a large number of giveaways from our generous sponsors, as well as amazing session-specific giveaways from speakers. Prizes include a Gitzo tripod, Vallerett photography gloves, a KelbyOne membership, a book and print from Art Wolfe, light painting tools, an Irix lens, a Move-Shoot-Move star tracker and more.

The Night Photo Summit is sponsored by Chimani, Coast Portland, Irix, Ledlenser, Manfrotto/Gitzo, Move-Shoot-Move, the NightScaper Conference, PhotoPills and Vallerret, with additional sponsors to be named soon.

How to Join Us

If you’re into night photography, or if you want to get into it, this is an event you absolutely do not want to miss.

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Tickets are $399, and include:

• 3 days, more than 25 instructors, over 45 hours of inspiration, instruction and fun

• 1 year of access to re-watch any of the courses

• a live image review session

• three panel discussions

• exclusive glow-in-the-dark summit T-shirt (mailed to attendees with U.S. addresses, and we may be able to help those from other countries too!)

• personal access to product experts from manufacturers and developers sponsoring the event

• giveaways throughout the duration of the summit

• an unprecedented opportunity to connect with like-minded photographers passionate about the night

Moreover, if you purchase your ticket before noon EST on January 14, you’ll get your shirt and a swag bag (USA only) before the summit!

Registration is available now, so sign up today and mark your calendars to join National Parks at Night for the world’s second online Night Photo Summit!

JOIN US ON SOCIAL MEDIA

As if that isn’t all enough, we’ll be releasing plenty more information over the next few weeks. To stay tuned in to it all, we invite you to follow the summit social media accounts on:

• Instagram: @nightphotosummit

• Facebook: @nightphotosummit

• Twitter: @nightsummit

We are very much looking forward to seeing you online next month. In the meantime, feel free to ask us any questions via the social media accounts above, in the comments below, or through the Night Photo Summit webpage.

Seize the night … online!

Lance Keimig is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He has been photographing at night for 30 years, and is the author of Night Photography and Light Painting: Finding Your Way in the Dark (Focal Press, 2015). Learn more about his images and workshops at www.thenightskye.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

B&H to Celebrate a Whole Week of Night, and We'll Be There!

As you know, we love night photography. And we love when others love night photography. And we’re always game for when someone wants to celebrate night photography, particularly when that “someone” is a giant in the photo industry, such as B&H Photo. And boy are they about to celebrate night photography!

Our favorite camera store and longtime friends at B&H have dubbed next week as “Night Photography Week,” during which they’ll be hosting a series of related content and events on all their channels.

Of course, we’re honored to be a part of it. See below for details.

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Instagram Story from Badlands

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Lightning in Badlands National Park. © 2019 Matt Hill. Nikon Z 6 with a 35mm lens. 4 seconds, f/8, ISO 200.

National Parks at Night’s Matt Hill and Tim Cooper will be in Badlands National Park next week to run a workshop during the peak of the Perseid Meteor Shower. They’ll be sharing part of that adventure with an Instagram story on B&H’s account. Follow by clicking on that link, and then keep your eye out for the story to develop.

Time-Lapse Talk

Our friend David Marx, who was a speaker at our Night Photo Summit earlier this year, will be presenting on “How to Create a Basic Timelapse Video Clip of the Night Sky.” David will cover everything from the basics to shooting a sequence of raw material to best cameras to use and more, plus how to put together your time-lapse in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop.

Moonshots

Andrei Duman recently completed a personal project at the Mount Wilson Observatory, using the Hubble Telescope to capture photographs of the moon and stars. During a 1-hour presentation titled “Shooting the Moon,” he’ll tell the story of that experience and share some of the amazing high-resolution photographs he made of our nearest celestial neighbor.

Comfort and Creativity

You’re not scared of the dark, are you? No matter the answer, this talk is a don’t-miss. On the second day of the celebration, our own Gabriel Biderman will take the virtual stage at the B&H Event Space to discuss “Tips for Gaining Comfort and Creativity in Night Photography.” Gabe’s advice will empower you with knowledge to not only make you a better night photographer, but to also get you excited to push yourself more with creative long exposures.

Deep-Sky Discoveries

Yet another of our Night Photo Summit speakers will join B&H stage when Kevin LeGore steps up to talk about “Natural Night,” sponsored by NiSi. Attendees will learn how Natural Night filters help Kevin produce intimate images of our galaxy.

Gentle Light at Night

On the final day, National Parks at Night’s Chris Nicholson and Lance Keimig will team to talk about “The Wonders of Low-level Landscape Lighting,” sponsored by Luxli. They’ll go over their strategies for using the LLL technique and tools to create night photography in a controlled and creative fashion.

Inside Look at Deep-Sky Gear

In his talk “Behind the Scenes with Astrophotography Equipment,” Matt Dieterich of PlaneWave Instruments will bring the audience on a visual tour of the advanced imaging gear they manufacture to help astronomers and astrophotographers around the world capture amazing pictures of deep space.

YouTube Features

All of the above are live events, and B&H has also some recorded presentations queued up for their YouTube channel, as they’ve put together a great lineup of night-photography themed videos for Night Photography Week. A few of these are by us too:

• “Best Cameras for Night Photography,” “Camera Settings for Night Photography,” “How to Photograph Star Trails” and “How to Light Paint” by Gabe

• “10 Night Photography Problems and How to Solve Them,” by Matt and Chris

• “Night Landscape Photography: From Light Painting to Light Writing,” by Lance

In addition to those, stay tuned for the following new releases for the week (all of which also happen to be from Night Photo Summit speakers):

• “How to Get Started in Astrophotography: 5 Tips with @Nateinthewild,” by Nate Luebbe

• “5 Composition Tips for More Striking Astro Photos,” by Autumn Schrock

• “5 Tips on Light Painting,” by Susan Magnano

More Info & Registration

We’re pretty excited to be part of Night Photography Week, just as we’re always excited to work alongside our good friends at B&H.

For more details on all the above and everything else planned, keep an eye on B&H’s social media, as well as the Explora article “Join B&H Photo for Night Photography Week.” We’ll see y’all there, to seize the night!

Chris Nicholson is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night, and author of Photographing National Parks (Sidelight Books, 2015). Learn more about national parks as photography destinations, subscribe to Chris' free e-newsletter, and more at www.PhotographingNationalParks.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Three Days of Night: A Wrap-Up of the Very First Night Photo Summit

Note: Missed the Night Photo Summit but want to catch up? For access to videos of all the presentations until February 2022, buy a Replays ticket!

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Some honesty: In the weeks leading up to our Night Photo Summit, we sounded confident in our marketing. But behind the scenes, we had no idea how this would go.

We knew the speakers would be amazing—we know almost all of them personally, know they’re good people, know they always bring their best (which is among the very best in the business).

We knew that night photography is exciting to learn about, exciting to do—and that it’s hard to go outside and do it right now, at least the way we used to at this time last year.

We knew that even in the best of years, mid-winter is a time when people are looking for something new to do inside, and a weekend of e-palling around with other night photographers could more than satisfy that need.

However, that’s about all we knew. All five of us at National Parks have spoken at conferences, summits, exhibitions, trade shows, photo festivals, etc., and two of us have extensive experience on the industry side of these events. But we had never built our own event of this size, on our own, from bottom to top. Doing so felt like we were standing at one edge of a canyon wondering how to get to the other. While in some ways we were crossing a familiar bridge, in many other ways we were leaping with hesitant faith.

Now that the Summit is over, we can look back and see the results. It was an experience. It was hard work, but enjoyable work. And in the end? We feel it went great.

When we say we’re happy, that can mean different things, and it does mean different things. We were happy with a lot: the quality of the programs, the vitality of the speakers, the enthusiasm of the attendees, the participation of the sponsors. But the biggest metric of success? The number of smiles at the end.

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The group shot from the “Under the Stars” closing session party.

The People

We’re happy to report that about 350 people, representing six continents, attended the first Night Photo Summit—which, as far as we know, was the first online night photography conference ever. To see 350 people there? At the very first event of its kind? Wow.

Each of you made the effort worthwhile, because each of you brought a unique energy, each of you contributed a bit of what made this collective experience special. Many have reached out in the past week to express thanks, but the gratitude genuinely goes both ways.

We couldn’t have done this without you. We started building this Summit, but you finished it. All 350 of you helped, all 350 of you brought your passion and curiosity, all 350 of you coalesced to make this conference what it really was: a community that grew closer over an extraordinary long weekend, together sharing the joy of something we all love.

The Speakers

Again: Wow.

Thirty speakers joined us to help lead this adventure, and all of them delivered some of the best educational and inspirational content we’ve ever seen concentrated into one conference. Of course, we’re not surprised—we know these people, and we knew they’d be good. Still, our lack of surprise doesn’t hinder us from being amazed.

The speakers spanned all sorts of disciplines. They brought expertise in night photography, obviously, but also in travel, astronomy, preservation, activism, environmentalism, technology, creativity, outdoors skills and more. The tapestry of knowledge and wisdom they wove was nothing short of uplifting and exhilarating, and it was beyond everything we and the attendees could wish for.

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The 35 speakers of the 2021 Night Photo Summit.

The Sponsors

Don’t let any skepticism of commercialism fool you—the sponsors weren’t there just to sell to an audience. Their support made the Summit more viable, but more importantly, their contributions made it an even better experience.

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The Night Photo Summit sponsors offered 33 giveaways valued at over $5,000.

Every sponsor provided giveaways for attendees, from lenses to monitors to software to books and more—33 giveaways worth over $5,000. Many sponsors also offered show specials on their services and gear, most of which attendees still have access to (some of the deals don’t expire for months!). And many of the sponsors also provided programs for the attendees: talks on calibration, light painting, star trackers, night photography filters, and so on.

Clearly, the sponsors weren’t just advertisers—they were a critical part of the team.

What’s Next?

If you weren’t able to join us, we have great news: You still can!

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Replays of more than 45 sessions are available for 24/7 streaming until February 2022.

The Night Photo Summit Course Catalog of video replays.

The Night Photo Summit registration fee covered not just the three days last weekend, but also streaming access to videos of all of the sessions for one year. Anyone can still buy a ticket to watch and learn from and be inspired by all of that content. Just visit nightphotosummit.com or click the button below to join the fun.

As for what happens in the future, beyond the replays? Well, we maybe need to rest a bit, and think a bit, and plan a bit. But we promise that we have no intention of being done with the Night Photo Summit. It will be back.

Until then, know that we are filled with gratitude for everyone who was involved—those who worked behind the scenes, those who encouraged us, those who supported us, those who joined us on stage, and especially those who joined us from the comfort of their homes and coffee shops around the world. We hope that the education we provided helps bring your night photography to new heights, and that the inspiration we offered helps you shine even brighter among the stars.

Chris Nicholson is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night, and author of Photographing National Parks (Sidelight Books, 2015). Learn more about national parks as photography destinations, subscribe to Chris' free e-newsletter, and more at www.PhotographingNationalParks.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Announcing the First-Ever Online Night Photo Summit

We are so pleased to announce the first-of-its-kind dedicated Night Photo Summit, to be held February 12-14, 2021.

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One of the things we love best about National Parks at Night is the amazing community that’s grown around our mutual love of night photography since we began this project back in 2015. We’ve been talking about a way to celebrate that for a long time.

Last year, we held our first all-alumni workshop in Death Valley, and the energy and camaraderie we all experienced was cathartic. (It seems like a decade ago now!) We’ve long wanted to do a larger-scale event to bring the entire community together, and to introduce more people to the magic we experience under the stars in our amazing national parks.

Rather than wait until we can all gather together in one of those parks, we decided to produce a virtual event now that will enable even more people to gather to share and learn from an extraordinary group of speakers and educators.

We are over the moon to present the first Night Photo Summit! 

Join us this February for three days of presentations from 28 dynamic speakers discussing a wide range of topics on all things nocturnal, and all things national parks, and a little more.

You’ll learn from photographers, astrophysicists, writers, artists and rangers about astronomy, dark skies, creativity, and of course photo techniques––both in the field and post-processing. 

There will be panel discussions (including one on “Women in Night Photography”), image reviews with the National Parks at Night instructors, a screening of the amazing aurora film Light Side Up, and opportunities to connect with the wider community of creative professionals who share a love of night photography.

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Our incredible lineup of speakers and talks includes:

• Kevin Adams: “Photographing Waterfalls between Sunset and Sunrise”

• Gabriel Biderman: “Urban Nightscapes: Creating Magical Long Exposures Under Streetlight”

• Paul Bogard: “Is This the End of Night?”

• Gary Bremen and Grant Livingston: “Songs and Stories of our National Parks”

• Russell Preston Brown: “Creative Night Photography with a Mobile Phone”

• Forest Chaput de Saintonge: “Getting Started With Deep Sky Astrophotography”

• Michael Frye: “Noise Reduction Strategies for Night Photography”

• Matt Hill: “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark: Fostering a Creative Night Photography Habit”

• Rachel Jones Ross: “Winter Nights: Capturing Night Sky Magic Without Freezing Your Bits”

• Lance Keimig: “Abbreviated History of Night Photography”

• Jennifer Khordi: “Shooting the Moon and New York City”

• Erik Kuna: “Ignite Your Nighttime Rocket Photography”

• Nate Luebbe and Autumn Schrock: “Chasing the Aurora Borealis”

• Susan Magnano: “Chasing Moonlight”

• David Marx: “Creating a Basic Time-Lapse Video Clip”

• Harun Mehmedinovic: “Skyglow”

• Dr. Tyler Nordgren: “Astrophysics for Better Astro-Landscape Photography”

• Troy Paiva: “Night Photography and Light Painting: the Lost America Style”

• Eric Paré: “Getting Started With Outdoors Tube Light Painting”

• Sherry Pincus: “Backpacking: the Key to Amazing Dark Skies and Unique Photo Opportunities”

• Rafael Pons: “How to Plan any Sun, Moon and Milky Way Photo You Imagine with PhotoPills”

• Sandra Ramos: “Planning the Perfect National Park Adventure”

• Jess Santos: “Blending Magic: Blue Hour Blends and Composites”

• Adam Woodworth: “Milky Way Panoramas”

• … and more to be announced!

The Basics

There will also be something very special to this summit: a Night Photography Fundamentals track that will allow a newcomer to this genre to learn the necessary skills, or the photographer with know-how to brush up their skills.

Sponsors & Giveaways

Every attendee will be automatically entered into drawings for a large number of giveaways from our generous sponsors, as well as amazing session-specific giveaways from some speakers. Prizes include a one-year Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, a night photo walk in New York City, B&H Photo gift cards, an Irix lens, books and video classes by our speakers, and more.

The Night Photo Summit is sponsored by B&H Photo, Adobe, Tether Tools, X-Rite, Coast Portland, Acratech, PhotoPills, Vallerret, Bay Photo and Irix, with additional sponsors to be named soon.

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How to Join Us

If you’re into night photography, or if you want to get into in it, this is an event you absolutely do not want to miss.

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Tickets are $399, and include:

• three days, 28 instructors, nearly 40 hours of inspirations and instruction

• 1 year access to re-watch any of the courses

• three live image review sessions

• three panel discussions

• Friday-night film screening with filmmaker Q&A

• exclusive summit T-shirt (mailed to attendees with U.S. addresses, and we may be able to help those from other countries too!)

• personal access to product experts from brand sponsors

• lots of giveaways throughout the duration of the summit

• an unprecedented opportunity to connect with like-minded photographers passionate about the night

Registration is available now, so sign up today and mark your calendars to join National Parks at Night for the world’s first online Night Photo Summit!

Join Us on Social Media

As if that isn’t all enough, we’ll be releasing plenty more information over the next few weeks. To stay tuned in to it all, we invite you to follow the Summit social media accounts on:

• Instagram @nightphotosummit

• Facebook @nightphotosummit

• Twitter @nightsummit

We are very much looking forward to seeing you online next month. In the meantime, feel free to ask us any questions via the social media accounts above, in the comments below, or through the Summit webpage.

Seize the night … online!

Lance Keimig is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He has been photographing at night for 35 years, and is the author of Night Photography and Light Painting: Finding Your Way in the Dark (Focal Press, 2015). Learn more about his images and workshops at www.thenightskye.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Parks and Nights 2020: Fee-Free Days, Supermoons, Meteor Showers and More

It's 2020! A new year with new opportunities to photograph national parks and night skies.

The next 12 months will be full of events and happenings that should appeal to anyone reading, so below we offer a list of some items to be on the lookout for.

Fee-Free Days

Most national parks charge a fee for entering. You can always pay at an entry station, but my preference is to buy an annual pass, which for only $80 (or less, or free, in some cases) gets you into all the National Park Service units, plus national wildlife refuges, national forests and so on—in total, over 2,000 federal recreation areas. Not a bad deal.

The parks are worth any price. Still, free is always nice, and there are five days in 2020 when the park service offers Fee-Free Days to all visitors:

• January 20: Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.

• April 18: First day of National Park Week

• August 25: National Park Service Birthday

• September 26: National Public Lands Day

• November 11: Veterans Day

Night Sky Festivals

Each year we publish a rundown of the night sky festivals offered by and in our national parks. (Stay tuned for that in the spring, when enough plans have been announced for us to be more comprehensive than we could be right now.) These festivals feature the darkest of dark skies, telescope setups, astronomy talks, photo walks and more.

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The national park star parties (such as the one at Grand Canyon, above) are full of opportunities for viewing and photographing night skies. © 2019 Chris Nicholson.

Two of the biggest festivals are at Grand Canyon (where Gabe and I delivered a presentation and ran programs last year) and Acadia national parks. But there are scores of others, including Badlands, Bryce Canyon, Lassen Volcanic, Shenandoah and so on.

Another biggie is one we don’t mention often because it always happens before we publish our annual list, and it’s about to commence: the Death Valley Dark Sky Festival. It runs this year from February 21-23. I was able to visit this festival during a workshop in the park last year—it’s an incredibly dynamic event under some of the very best night skies in the U.S.

Workshops

Of course, we’d be remiss not to mention that a new year is a great time to learn new photography skills, and a great way to do that is on a workshop. The benefits of attending a photography workshop or tour include not just hands-on assistance and expert location knowledge, but also camaraderie and the security of a group adventure.

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Our workshop group at the beginning of a night shoot in Dry Tortugas National Park in 2017. © 2017 Gabriel Biderman.

Of course we’d love if you attend one of ours workshops, but there are countless other programs that run excellent events as well. If there’s a particular place you want to photograph or a particular skill you want learn, there’s likely a workshop for that.

We have seats left for a few of our 2020 workshops and tours:

• May 16-23: Scotland—The Orkney Islands

• June 6-12: Shenandoah National Park

• July 19-24: Maine—Monhegan and Acadia

• October 29-November 3: Catskill Night Portraiture

• November 15-20: Barcelona

Beyond that, Google is your friend. Find an experience that speaks to you, and go!

Supermoons

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Craterlicious moon, Biscayne National Park. Nikon D500 with a Nikkor 800mm f/5.6. 1/1000, f/11, ISO 1000. © 2018 Gabriel Biderman.

The astronomy world doesn’t have an official definition of what constitutes a supermoon, so sometimes some astronomers proclaim a moon super when others don’t. Such is the case this year, when some are designating only two. But Fred Espenak (who EarthSky dubs “the go-to astronomer on all things related to lunar and solar eclipses”) is classifying four full moons this year as super:

• February 9

• March 9

• April 8

• May 7

So on those nights you can figure the moon will be a little bigger and a little brighter. (For a couple of ideas on what to do with that, see Tim’s blog post “Light Painting in Moonlight—Using the Moon as Key Light, or Using it as Fill.”)

By the way, this won’t be super, but it could be fun: There’s a blue moon on Halloween this year. Just sayin’.

Falling Stars and Such

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Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado. Nikon D750, 15mm Zeiss Distagon f/2.8 lens. 234 images at 22 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 6400, plus a single exposure at 382 seconds, ISO 2000 for the landscape after moonrise. © 2017 Matt Hill.

The night sky is full of things besides the moon, and some of them fall. Below is a list of 2020 meteor showers. They’re listed by the date of peak activity, so you should be able to see meteors for several days before and after:

• April 22: Lyrid Meteor Shower (during new moon)

• May 6: Eta Aquarid Meteor Shower

• July 28: Delta Aquarid Meteor Shower

• August 12: Perseid Meteor Shower

• October 7: Draconid Meteor Shower

• October 21: Orionid Meteor Shower

• November 4: Taurid Meteor Shower

• November 17: Leonid Meteor Shower (during new moon)

• December 13: Geminid Meteor Shower (during new moon)

• December 21: Ursid Meteor Shower

This year will also feature two other notable astronomical events:

• February 18: occultation of moon and Mars

• June 21: annular solar eclipse (in Central Africa, Saudi Arabia, India and China)

• December 21: rare conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn

It’s also good to note the two solstices:

• June 22: June solstice (longest day of the year—very sad)

• December 21: December solstice (longest night of the year—yay!)

Also, the equinoxes fall on March 20 and September 22, but we’re ambivalent about those.

Wrapping Up

So there you go—a whole bunch of opportunities to get out and seize the night in 2020. Which ones are on your radar? Share in the comments section below, or in the comments on our Facebook page.

Chris Nicholson is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night, and author of Photographing National Parks (Sidelight Books, 2015). Learn more about national parks as photography destinations, subscribe to Chris' free e-newsletter, and more at www.PhotographingNationalParks.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT