Milky Way first week of April, visible?

I know that July and August are the best months as I was able to shoot the Milky Way last year around 10 pm in early August. However, I will be a in very dark place in southern Utah the first week in April. Anyone with any experience shooting it know if it is even visible that time of year from our hemisphere?

Google helped me answer the question. Posting this for all to read. http://www.nightskyatlas.com/milkyway.jsp

And this disappointing news: http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2011/04/06/how-to-see-beyond-the-milky-way-from-your-backyard/

At least I will get more sleep.

Hey Rodney, yes it will be quite visible in April, it comes out around 3am and will be visible until 5am. You should definitely get out if you'll be in southern Utah, the skies are very dark and you will be able to see it with your eye.

A subject I believe more photographers are getting interested in along with myself and a purchase of a Nikon D800e I plan on putting to use this year for this. Thanks for the links Rodney. One National Geographic photographer I follow closely is Jim Richardson who is very involved in things like light pollution.
Check him out Jim Richardson

Thanks David, I will give it a go. You are welcome Brad. I shot it for the first time last summer, and it is surprisingly easy. I want to improve on what I got last year. And I also forgot to take some dark frames every 30 mins for the mapping software to remove noise.

Rodney - My understanding is that you can take the dark frames later (thought I haven't done that), although they aren't at the exact environmental conditions you would have gotten them in at the time. With very long exposures, they should at least be somewhat close unless you were in extreme conditions temperature-wise.

I wouldn't worry about the dark frames, it helped out some with older cameras that had a ton of noise, but I just did some testing with my clients at a workshop this weekend, we tried to use some dark frames in post and it made no difference at ISO 6400, made it look worse actually. The newer generation cameras are so clean at high iso there is no need to do much noise reduction at all.

For those that need help locating the milky way you can use a great FREE program http://www.stellarium.org/
I'll save you some headaches though
Spring - visible in the SE just before sunrise
Summer - visible in the S around Midnight
Fall - visible in the SW just after sunset
Winter - Brightest portion not visible.

Thanks David. I didn't see this reply till now. Was anyone in your workshop using a D300 or D700?

I use the D700 and used to have the D300, dark frames would probably help with the 300

Thanks. None of my companions were interested in waking up at 3 am. I will be shooting it again in late July.