Milky Way Over Quail Springs Pump House

 I've hiked out to the Quail Springs pump house before (most recently HERE), but never at night. As a matter of fact, I don't think I've ever seen a night photograph of the pump house, and I know I've never seen a photo of the pump house under the Milky Way. Not many people know about the location so it doesn't get many visitors, and the number of night visitors is probably... well, let's see... zero! Anyway, the idea hit me when I was trying to think of possible interesting foregrounds for the Milky Way, and the pump house seemed to check all the boxes. The view of the pump house is to the south (as is the MW), so we can check off that box. The location should be plenty dark, and it's about 2 miles to the nearest road (so no interference from car headlights: Check ✔️). The elevation is nearly 4000', so that would help a little with the hot summer desert temperature.

On the hike out to the pump house, you pass by this old rusty relic, which is pretty cool! You are also not far from Samuelson's Rocks. Close to the rusty car is a collapsed cabin, so lots to see out in this area if you know where to look.

 

This cabin was unique in that it had a basement or cellar. It's noticeably cooler down here! Now it's just a snake den. No, just kidding, but I do look very carefully before proceeding in. Because of the rusty cars close proximity to the cabin, they very likely had the same owner. But I've never been able to find any information about the owner of this cabin. 

 

This cabin had a totally bitchen front porch, and the whole area has a very nice feel to it, with lovely desert views. Desert living at its finest! There's a very faint road that leads from the cabin to the pump house. It's likely the owner(s) of this house drove the old jalopy up to the pump house for water.

 

I've heard it said that the old timers would use whatever they could find (usually an old piece of tin from a can) to cover up holes in cabin walls, especially where there was knot in the wood that would allow air to blow in. Here's proof!

 

It's about 6:30PM when I get to the pump house. That gives me about an hour until sunset, and plenty of time to look around and get my camera and tripod set up.

 

 

The old pump still works, which is amazing to me! On this visit, it took a lot of pumping for just a trickle of water. I kept at it until the trough was about half full. I'm guessing the local critters will appreciate it! Interesting side note: Almost the moment I pumped out a trickle of water, the bees went crazy!

 

Killing time, waiting for the Milky Way to rise.

 

 

 

Until finally, it was dark enough and the MW was in the right position...

It's so much fun being out in the desert at night under all these stars! Totally quiet with just the occasional yip of a coyote. The above photo is actually 10 photos that are "stacked" to reduce noise (since you have to crank up the ISO for these MW photos). My plan was to go out at night for more photos the night after this photo was taken to (hopefully) capture the Perseid meteors. Long story, but the camera settings were incorrect (read: User error) and after taking around 300 photos, I got nothing. So I decided to go back to my pump house photos, brighten them up a little, and see if I could spot any meteors.

Darn if I didn't capture some!! Out of the 10 photos I took (10 second exposure, ISO 8000), 3 or 4 had faint meteors that could be seen. I combined them into this single image. What a nice bonus to have on my MW photos!

 

There's only one challenging part to this hike, and that's hiking open desert using headlamp and phone navigation to get back to the car. The above photo shows you exactly what it looks like. No mountains or landmarks of any kind; just a patch of light from the headlamp. If my phone navigation would malfunction or my battery died, I would have to just sit down and wait for first light. There's just no way of navigating without GPS, unless you're one of those people who know how to navigate using the stars! Anyway, all went well, my trusty phone app guided me right back to my car, and it was a wonderful night to be out taking pictures in the desert!

 

Thanks for stopping by, and stay healthy!

Linking with Skywatch Friday.