I have chased this photo for over four years. Trying to capture the full Milky Way is technically very difficult to do so that made it a fun goal to reach for. Beyond the technical nature of capturing such a wide image accurately, there are other factors such as the weather, the moon, my schedule and availability to get into the right position at the right time, not to mention the bears, wolves and campers that are always on my mind.  This was taken on the Nip and Tuck road just above Stanley, Idaho.  I take a lot of photos here because it’s in the Central Idaho Dark Sky Reserve.

Getting myself into the photo was the last challenge. After I had (hopefully) taken a successful full panorama, I centered the camera to take one more shot of the center and turned on the timer. But I didn’t know when the shutter was going to fire and it’s a 20-second exposure, so I had to stand there, very still for a long time to be sure one of the photos captured me while remaining still. It worked!