By Chelsea DeWeese
The crisp, sagebrush-laced mountain air hits your nostrils as you step outside your Yellowstone Wildlife Profiles vehicle and into the wide expanse of Swan Lake Flat. Your excitement is palpable as you take in the surrounding night-sky scenery. A visceral quiet encompasses the landscape. It’s the type of quiet that compels a person to remain still and hold their breath.
The only sounds you hear after the shushing of pants, crunching of footwear, and closing of sedan doors stops are the occasional “hoot” of an owl and the muted clamoring of coyotes in the distance.
You look up. The inky-black sky is interrupted only by the intermittent twinkling of stars, planets, and glow of galaxies. The familiar silhouettes of trees and mountains take on a mysterious demeanor as they are backlit by the nighttime sky. Few places in the world offer such unimpeded views of dark skies. We count ourselves lucky to have exactly this here in Yellowstone National Park, the world’s first and finest national park on the planet.
Night-sky aficionado and nighttime photographer Angela Tempo helps YWP guests capture these moments on camera and to witness a different side of Yellowstone. Even if you don’t necessarily want to pursue a picture, venturing into this wild space and learning about the stars when most other visitors are inside for the evening offers a completely different perspective we would highly encourage you to consider.
Winter
Yellowstone Park’s North Entrance, where Yellowstone Wildlife Profiles is located, offers uninterrupted access to Yellowstone’s Northern Range and Lamar Valley from November through mid-April when the rest of the park is closed to regular vehicles. Here, wild animals including elk, bison, moose, and their predators such as wolves, seek food and refuge during the park’s most challenging season. Wolves tend to hunt at dawn and dusk so you might possibly hear them howling in the distance when you venture out to admire the night skies. Some celestial events you might possibly encounter, in addition to the predictably stunning stars, might be a lunar eclipse, views of planets like Venus and Mercury, and the passage of constellations like Taurus the Bull. On occasion, the moon or a planet might move in between a series of stars and Earth, gradually darkening them temporarily, in an event called an occultation.
Summer
Starting in mid-April, additional roads open granting access to Yellowstone’s interior and different opportunities to view and photograph the park’s night skies become available. The mountain-rimmed Swan Lake Flat, where we started this story, is a wonderful place to start. Other notable locations within an evening’s drive could include the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River, famous for its seemingly iridescent volcanic walls, and possibly Norris Geyser Basin, though the thick steam from hot springs can sometimes blur the view of stars. Regulus, a bright star in the Leo the Lion constellation, is generally visible near the red planet Mars in June while the Perseid meteor shower, an annual display of shooting stars, lights up the night sky with natural fireworks in the months of July and August. The picture displayed here and taken by Angela was during the 2024 Perseid meteor shower in Yellowstone.
Angela counts herself lucky to live and work in an area night-sky viewing and photography is available. She counts herself even luckier to be able to share this experience with YWP visitors, saying it allows guests to experience the park in a surreal way. No experience is required for her night sky tours, and she says equipment ranging from smartphones to manual cameras are acceptable for capturing images. “Despite general opinion, you don’t need expensive equipment to enjoy the night sky. We are in a place where we can appreciate celestial events with the naked eye,” she says.
“We should be protecting our skies as much as we protect our lands. The night sky is a crucial part of our life cycle, and it’s also the easiest pollution to fight—we just need to turn off the lights at night.”
Learn more about our Night Sky Photography Tours, or visit us to learn more about Angela and the rest of our guide team.