Night Sky Practice

Back in late June, I was talking to a friend about going out to Joshua Tree for some night sky photography. Specifically, going out on a "new moon" night when the Milky Way should be at it's peak visibility. I've not done much night photography, so I decided to go out for some practice shots. It was predicted to be a clear sky with no moon, so conditions should be ideal. So off I headed with my camera, wide angle lens, and tripod in hand. My head was stuffed full of information from YouTube videos on how to photograph the Milky Way. My goal was to get to the area about an hour before sunset. That would give me time for a short hike and to look around for a good spot to set up. I also wanted to practice night navigation. Hiking in the desert at night, without a trail to follow, in total darkness (other than a headlamp) is something I've not done before and I was a little nervous about it.

It turned out to be a pretty sky afternoon, but certainly not the cloudless sky I was hoping for! The clouds reminded me of white steam or vapor. With that in mind, I tried to compose my shots so it looked like the white vapor was flowing out of the top of the Joshua trees. Not sure why some of the Joshua trees in this area are leaning like this. And all in the same direction. Perhaps an area with constant wind?

The drive in on Geology Tour Road. Yikes, that's a lot of clouds. I wonder if I'll be able to see the Milky Way at all tonight??

Also on the drive in... jackrabbits. Everywhere! I've never seen so many jackrabbits. I'm sure the wet winter/spring we had is responsible. Get out of the road, you silly wabbit!!

Rocks...

And more rocks!

As I was hiking around, looking for a good foreground shot to compliment my Milky Way sky (which I was starting to doubt I would actually see), I came across this:

What the heck? Looks like a little alien landed on the rock. But look closely and you can see a solar panel between the rocks. Let's go check out the solar panel.

There was wiring leading from the "alien" to the solar panel, and from the solar panel to this box.

Evidently I stumbled across a GPS monitoring station. Out in the middle of nowhere in a national park. With no trail going to it. Very odd. It looks like it's been here a while. You just never know what you will come across in the desert! I tried checking out www.earthscope.org without any luck.

Just on the other side of the rock with the "alien" I found this little guy:

A baby rattlesnake, about 12" long, looking lethargic with his head in the bushes. He kind of gave me the willies because he didn't rattle and I almost stepped on him. I hate it when they don't rattle.

As the sun set, the sky started to pick up some color. Nothing to do now but wait... the Milky Way wouldn't have good visibility for another couple hours.

Look closely... can you see the stars? It shouldn't be too long now. Besides, it turns out I'm not alone out here. The coyotes are howling like crazy. There must be a whole pack of them and they sound close. And I'm alone... in the dark... in the desert...

My first attempt. I consider it a success because you can at least make out the Milky Way. A 20 second exposure at ISO 6400. I held a light up above the camera to light up the foreground. These kinds of shots take a lot of experimenting, and a number of my photos were pretty bad.

Another attempt... 20 seconds, ISO 5000, with some hand-held light on the foreground. Kind of cool that the Milky Way is horizontal, and thankful that the clouds aren't totally blocking my night view.

I decide to move away from the coyote pack and start navigating back toward the Jeep. It's weird and a little spooky hiking in the open desert by headlamp. You can't use the usual mountains, peaks, or boulders to keep you oriented since you can only see a few feet in front of you.

Feeling extremely thankful to make it back to the road, I decide to take a quick shot of the 4-Wheel Drive sign. The wide angle lens distorts the shot (kind of looks like the sign is falling over) but I like it anyway.

Here's what the drive home on Geology Tour Road looks like. Total blackness except what the headlights illuminate. I was dodging jackrabbits all the way!!

Since this night sky practice session, I've been out three times attempting to photograph the Milky Way. One of the three I've already posted about here: The Car Wash at Night. It was a bust. My camera sensor overheated which resulted in noisy, unusable images. But stay tuned. I still have two more night sky photo outings to share with you!

Linking with Skywatch Friday.

Thanks for stopping by!!

Pismo Beach Getaway (part 2)

I never finished my Pismo Beach post from a couple weeks ago. I was so excited about finding the "Hidden Cave Pictographs" (last weeks post) that I couldn't resist sharing that with you!

Pismo Beach (part 1) was all about beautiful sunsets over the ocean, taken with my big camera and telephoto lens. This "part 2" post is (unless otherwise noted) all about cellphone shots. You can't beat a cellphone for convenience, and both cameras fill a different need.

That's our motel up on the cliff. My wife in the foreground, working on a puzzle, and you can just make out my granddaughter (Lilly) flopping around in the sand. Actually, I think she might have been digging a hole. Whatever, she's a perpetual blur of activity.

Pismo Beach is so beautiful, and so different from the S CA beaches I am used to. Even during their busy time, the crowds were light. The rock formations, cliffs and caves along the beach were an added bonus!

Some of the cliffs were off-white and chalky.

From inside one of the many sea caves in the area.

There are 107 stairs from the motel down to the beach. How do I know? Lilly counted them on EVERY SINGLE TRIP which is why the number sticks in my mind. Here we are heading back UP the 107 steps, which is significantly more difficult than the trip down. It was probably my idea to stop and rest on the way up 😉. 

One of my favorite shots. I came across these old stairs that at one time allowed people access to the beach from the bluffs above. The ocean and her tides had a different idea, making these stairs no longer usable. That looks like the moon, but it's actually the sun viewed through fog and clouds.

A nice skywatch shot. A pretty sky, and this pelican just happened to fly in front of me at just the right moment!

Gayle & Lilly on the Pismo Beach Pier.

Gayle & Lilly outside another amazing sea cave in the area!

Even on a cloudy, misty late afternoon, it's enjoyable to be on the beach.

Gayle & Lilly got up early on day 2, and noticed the tide was out. Off they went, hoping to find sand dollars. It's been many years since I've seen sand dollars on the beach. I never see them any more on the S CA beaches, but I remember seeing them when I was a kid. How about you... do you remember finding sand dollars along the beach?

Jackpot!!!!! Many sand dollars were found, and Lilly had a blast running around in the shallow water searching for them. 

Artsy-fartsy sand dollar art. I used a macro lens on my DSLR for the sand dollar photos.

A personal favorite... Lilly & Gayle posing in a local restaurant. Probably about as close as we will ever get to deep sea fishing, since I get sea sick the moment I set foot on a boat!

The Pismo shoreline and seacliffs are popular with kayakers. Shot with my DSLR and telephoto lens.

The view of Pismo Pier from our motel balcony. Another DSLR shot using my telephoto lens.

A pretty, late afternoon crescent moon (yup, DSLR/telephoto).

A very memorable trip... both fun and relaxing. Lilly had a blast! Thanks for joining us on our quick 2-night get-away to Pismo Beach!

Linking with Skywatch Friday.

Thanks for stopping by!!

"Hidden Cave" Pictographs

Just out of the blue, I had this really nice individual contact me by email last week to tell me he likes my blog. He specifically mentioned my posts about rock art sites. Turns out, he is super knowledgeable about rock art sites in Joshua Tree and shared a couple locations with me. That's a big deal. Rock art sites are closely guarded secrets because there are so many knuckleheads out there that will deface them. So it made me feel good that this individual trusted me enough to share locations.

So earlier this week I went to visit one of the spots he shared with me. The "Hidden Cave" pictographs (also called "Indian Cave" pictographs) is one of the best examples of well preserved pictographs I've seen. The site has been described as "pristine", "amazing", and an "irreplaceable and sacred place". It's a small, cramped space under a huge rock formation, so a real challenge to photograph. You can just barely sit up once inside, and most of the photography is done while laying on your side or back. "Hidden" is a good description for the cave, because even if you can find it, people have taken great pains to hide the entrance by building a rock wall. 

The rock wall has to be taken down before you can crawl into the cave. To give you a sense of scale, that large boulder (bottom center) is too big and heavy to lift. I could only roll it out of place. I'm getting too old for this!

As you crawl into this hidden cave, and your eyes adjust to the darkness... hang on to your hat because you will be amazed!!

After removing the rocks and crawling into the cave, this is what you see looking back toward the entrance. Because the cave is not exposed to the elements, the pictographs are in excellent shape. Although the cave is small, it is chock-full of pictographs. There are so many it's difficult to document them all.

I knew in advance that the cave would be cramped and dark, so I brought a wide angle lens, a fisheye lens, and a couple small LED light panels. Also, a word about the photos. I used a program called DStretch to enhance the pictographs, and then blended those results with the original image in Photoshop. That way the images don't look so distorted and the pictographs stand out.

Here comes the sun!

I'm glad I brought my fisheye lens. Although the images have the fisheye distortion, it gives you a sense of the inside of the cave and the myriad petroglyphs on the walls and ceiling. As you can see, they are almost all done in red pigment. It appears there may be a couple done with black pigment. One site said they thought this cave was likely used for female puberty rituals, both because of the red pigment used as well as the shapes of the pictographs themselves. But who knows. That's one of the interesting things about rock art... nobody seems to know what the symbols mean, but there are plenty of theories!

Below is a random sampling of some of the pictos. Wouldn't it be cool to know their significance!? The variety is amazing.

The photo below is the only one from the surrounding area I'll be sharing. 

Directly adjacent to Hidden Cave pictographs is this large boulder. See all the white chalk? Looks like rock climbers visit here frequently. Wouldn't they be surprised if they could see inside the cave only a few yards away!

So after nearly 2 hours of crawling around on the dirt floor of a cramped and hot cave, laying on my back and side getting photos, sweating like crazy (remember it's August in Joshua Tree!), it's time to crawl out from under my rock and re-build the stone wall that keeps Hidden Cave Pictographs so well hidden. After a good 20 minutes, the rock wall is rebuilt and it's even stronger than when I found it. I take pride in my work, stand up (slowly and stiffly... did I mention I'm getting too old for this??) and pack away all my camera gear. As I put on my backpack and get ready to leave, I'm thinking... where's my hat and sunglasses?? Yup, you guessed it... THEY'RE IN THE CAVE!!!

I'm exhausted, and it crosses my mind to perhaps just leave them inside. But no, I need them, so I begin tearing apart my big beautiful rock wall, rock by rock, squeeze back into the cave, grab my hat and sunglasses, squeeze back out, and rebuild my rock wall for a second time! Now I'm even more exhausted, and kicking myself for being so forgetful.

I'll leave you with a couple Joshua Tree sky shots from this outing. As the sun sets behind the desert rocks, the Joshua trees slowly turn to silhouettes!

Linking with Skywatch Friday.

Thanks for stopping by!!