Night Sky Photo Becomes Forever Postage Stamp Image


May 25, 2016

By Matt Dieterich, Guest Blogger

Purple night skies over Mount Rainier

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine a night sky photograph I captured from Mount Rainier National Park would become a United States Forever Postage Stamp.

During the summer of 2015, I served as an Astronomy Ranger intern at Mount Rainier where I was able to share my passion for science and the outdoors with park visitors. Just a few months prior, I graduated with my master’s in geology and, as a capstone experience, drove 3,500 miles cross country from Pittsburgh, PA to inspire others to enjoy the night sky. For the last 10 years of my life, I have been hunting down dark night skies away from city lights to capture the Milky Way and starry-filled sky. During my undergraduate years studying Environmental Science, I made monthly trips down into the mountains of West Virginia where I would camp and setup my camera equipment to capture images of the night sky in stunning detail that few people have seen before.

Such remarkably clear views of the night sky are becoming harder and harder to find as a result of bright city lights spilling outward into the countryside, which is called light pollution. Ever notice how at night your sky looks orangish-yellow? This is the result of city lights and unfortunately drowns out fragile starlight, completely washing away the Milky Way, sometimes up to 150-200 miles away from major cities.

The goal of my photography is to bring attention to the beauty that exists above our heads in the night sky away from these city lights. I want to inspire children and adults to continue the tradition of viewing the stars. After all, gazing up at the night sky is a major part of the human experience and such a resource is in need of our protection now more than ever for future generations to enjoy.

In the middle of June last year while I was at Mount Rainier, there were a few nights with active Northern Lights. I was fortunate enough to have witnessed one such event as visitors to my astronomy program noticed a slight pink hue (aurora) in their photographs, so I knew this was going to be a special night. After that astronomy program, in the early morning hours of June 23rd, I traveled down to Reflection Lakes to capture a time-lapse video of the Northern Lights over Mount Rainier. Once I arrived at the lake, I was brought to tears because as soon as I looked at Mount Rainier, I saw a black and white pillar of light, which appeared to fade and dim away over the course of five minutes. This pillar of light was actually the Northern Lights. When I aimed my camera at this light and took a long exposure, the entire frame was a bright pink from the aurora! Previously, I had dreamt of seeing the Northern Lights, so this experience was one that I never thought I would have in person. The emotion of experiencing such a remarkable natural phenomenon left me breathless and solidified my connection to the night sky. Over the next two hours that night, I captured a 200 image time-lapse video, which would, in turn, become the photograph that I used to create my Star Trails stamp.

Listen to the NPR story here.

Read Mount Rainier National Park’s press release about the Forever Stamp.

Matt’s work can be viewed at www.MDieterichPhoto.com. And, Matt is offering a limited edition set of signed and numbered prints in honor of the stamp (email him for details at MDieterich58@gmail.com).