My 65th birthday trip (YES, in October 2025!) was to explore possible camping venues on Utah BLM land, look for Milky Way foreground sights, and to capture DSO data from the dark skies of Bryce Park Place in Cannondale, Utah. As you read back in October – the trip was a complete success! What I alluded to, but never got back around to, was processing the images I captured of the Milky Way, Orionids Meteor Shower, and Comet C-2025 Lemmon. As I was closing out my 2025 AP Journal last weekend – I realized my negligence with those images…so I made that right today (17Jan2026) – better late than never!
The blog that described the rest of our birthday trip to the amazing dark skies of Cannonville, Utah is: https://beersastrophotography.com/photography-journals/birthday-dark-skies-trip-to-utah/. The DSO images and that blog were processed and posted in a much more timely manner. Better late than never, here is one final image from that trip…the Milky Way Core captured from Cabin#11 at Bryce Park Place in Cannonville, UT.
One last image…neglected until now!
I spent one night during our Bryce Canyon trip imaging the Milky Way, Orionids Meteor shower, and Comet C-2025 Lemmon with the EOS Ra and Sigma 14mm lens on a static tripod, taking 15 second exposures throughout. I realized as I was closing out my 2025 AP Journal, that I’d never processed any of those images – or even looked at the images to see if I’d captured anything! So, I spent a bit of time in early January (17Jan2026) looking through and seeing if there was anything worth processing.
Comet C-2025 Lemmon: I set up the camera/tripod on the west side of our Bryce Park Place cabin, pointing toward the west. Captured 102x15sec exposures, 20Oct2025, 19:14MDT – 20:43MDT. After importing the 102 captured images into LR and using the “develop” module as my culling mechanism, there were ZERO images with the comet – but I did discover a very active flight path, as there were multiple airplane trails throughout most of the images.
Milky Way Core: After I finished my (unsuccessful) capture of the comet, I moved the camera/tripod to the east side of our cabin, pointing toward the southeast. Captured 128x15sec exposures, 20Oct2025, 20:46MDT – 21:33MDT of the Milky Way Core.
Orionids Meteor Shower: Early the next morning, when the meteor shower was to be at its peak, I set up the camera/tripod on the west side of our Bryce Park Place cabin, pointing toward the southwest. Captured 219x15sec exposures, 21Oct2025, 05:18MDT – 06:35MDT. After importing the 219 captured images into LR and using the “develop” module as my culling mechanism, there were 28 images that had meteors (or in one case the comet!) captured. I stacked those 28 images in Sequator, which eliminated all the meteors to create its single stacked image (of the Milky Way, but not the core). I then attempted to register those images in APP, so I could bring them into PS and stack them – only 21 images would successfully register. When I brought those 21 registered .tiff files into LR, for subsequent movement as layers into PS, they were so dark/dim – that again, the meteors were lost. Integrating the registered frames in APP, again, lost all the meteors. That’s where my patience ran out…I gave up on the idea of processing the meteor shower images (for now…until I have some free time with nothing to do!).
The Milky Way Core image was the only “product” from that night…if anyone has the patience to process the meteor shower images, I’d be happy to send you the data. I may get back to it at some point – when I have some free time and am looking for something to occupy that time – but I’m not thinking that’s going to happen anytime soon!