Not really sure how it happened, but I ended up planning a Milky Way adventure with my new St. Croix Camera Club members who were interested. My friend and I took a road trip one afternoon to check out the area.
According to the club, there have been a few Aurora photos taken there so they thought Phantom Lake at Crex Meadows would be a good spot for the Milky Way. Unfortunately the Milky Way is south and the Auroras are generally north. The location they had in mind would not work.
Using Planit Pro, my friend and I continued to drive around the Crex Meadows area. Driving up the side of Phantom Lake, I could see that it would probably work in the early spring. It might actually be worth checking out in March or April, weather depending.
Meanwhile, we needed to find a spot for the camera club members, so we continued heading northward up along Phantom Lake Road, over Main Dyke Road and then up the side of Reisinger Lake on West Refuge Road. Looking the map the gentleman in the Crex Meadows Headquarters and Wildlife Education Center office gave us, I was hopeful for the top of Reisinger Lake.
Regal Overlook didn’t have any water and I am really loving reflections so we kept driving.
Popping out for quick photos was insanely buggy and NOT fun. I would have to plan accordingly when we came out for the actual Milky Way photo shoot.
Finally we reached the top of the lake and North Refuge Road and we came to the Rest Area.
I was excited, it looked perfect plus it had bathrooms and parking. I took some test photos and marked it on my Planit Pro app.
We headed back, the long way round (no phone signal, I took a right instead of a left.. or vice versa..) and I let the Camera Club know my discoveries and all interested members were excited. Now we had to wait for a clear sky forecast.
Meanwhile, I emailed Friends of Crex Meadows and let them know our plans. They were very helpful (although not quite as excited as the gentleman we spoke with on our first trip). They said we were fine to take photos there during the night.
Watching for clear skies and needing a night where people didn’t have to get up for work the next day, the first opening I saw was the night of July 3rd. The forecast was iffy, it kept switching back and forth between clear, partly cloudy and mostly clear. Even the day of we weren’t sure what was going to happen, but using tools such as Clear Sky Charts the possibilities looked good. We called a go
We decided to meet at the campground around dark. We had people coming from all over so it was just easiest to meet there. A few carpooled, which worked nicely.
I got there around 10pm. Most everyone was already there and set up. I sprayed my bug stuff and put on my mosquito net hat and got out to introduce myself to people I didn’t know.
Full dark wasn’t until 11:30 and I hadn’t originally planned on taking photos until then, but.. there were lightning bugs! I set up my camera on an intervalometer on the lower level directly on the road. This put me closer to the water, for reflections, and closer to the fireflies. Using the intervalometer allowed me to wander around and talk to people. Everyone seemed to be doing fine.
I changed location a couple times, 2 sets along the road: one before full dark with the fireflies and one after full dark, which would give me deeper colors.
There was some light pollution but with post-processing, it was doable. I’ve been to much worse locations (although the Dark Skies location in Colorado will be hard to beat).
Some people started packing up so I moved to the upper level where the rest area parking area was (and closer to my car) because I didn’t want to be that far away from my car if I was by myself. I took a few photos up there until it was down to me and another member. Soon after he left, I got a mosquito under my mosquito net and I was totally done. Dang bugs.
It was still a great night.