Daniel Heyer

Artist Statement

I discovered astrophotography several years ago when I lived in the suburbs of Seattle, Washington, where it was virtually at sea level & roughly 226 days were classified as cloudy. I used to have to travel at least 2 hours (usually to the central or eastern part of the state) to image at a dark-sky location with very few obstacles. My wife would ask me jokingly why, of all the hobbies I could pick up in WA, I had to choose astrophotography.

In 2022, I had a couple of opportunities to visit New Mexico. I will never forget my first NM star party, which I attended in October that year. The Bortle 1 dark-sky conditions made the Milky Way so bright that it cast a shadow. I knew I had to come back.

Fast forward to 2024: In April, I learned that a telescope pier at a remote observatory in Pie Town was becoming available and decided to sign a lease. It was incredible for me to finally be able to image night after night without even leaving my home. I could now choose to photograph some of the faintest targets that are billions of light-years away. I learned the art of stacking and processing astro images quickly once I had so much data to work with. In the fall of that year, my wife and I sold our WA home and moved to New Mexico. (So we were paying the rent for the telescope even before we started paying the rent for us to live in the Land of Enchantment.)

New Mexico expanded my horizon as an astrophotographer—not only in what I can see, but in how I think about seeing. The altitude, clarity, and darkness of the sky here revealed a depth I had only imagined before. Under these skies, faint nebulae and distant galaxies that once felt out of reach now slowly emerge through hours of collected light.

Living and working under such pristine conditions has also given me a deep respect for the quality of New Mexico’s night skies—something the state should be incredibly proud of and protective of. The darkness here is not just an aesthetic luxury; it is a fragile natural resource. Through my work, I hope to contribute in some small way to preserving and celebrating that darkness. Astrophotography, for me, is both documentation and advocacy: a reminder of what is still visible when we choose to protect the night.