Bird Skull Rock

 I've posted about Bird Skull Rock before, most recently in July of 2023. It's one of my favorite rock formations in Joshua Tree National Park, and it's oriented nicely for night photography. We arrived a bit before sunset and the sky was putting on a beautiful show!

 

 

 

 

8:13pm "blue hour" with small lights inside the "eyes".

8:41pm: Kind of eerie looking! Are you going to be staring at me all night like that??

The Milky Way will be up and in a good position around 1am, so we decide to try to get a few hours of sleep, and set our alarms for 12:45. I'm worried about the cloud cover that's been moving in and out might end up blocking our view of the MW. 

 

Beep beep beep... The alarm goes off and I'm not sure either of us got any sleep, but we tried!

Just a piece of the MW is visible, but even so, the combination of clouds and stars is beautiful! It's been a fun night, and we decide to try to get more sleep and hike back to the car in the morning (vs. hiking back around 2am in the dark). It turned out to be a good decision.

 

If the sky had been clear, here's what the Milky Way would have looked like:

I took this photo 7/2023.

 

Anyway, it turned out to be an exceptionally pretty sunrise, so glad we opted to spend the night!

 

Thanks for stopping by!!

Linking with Skywatch Friday.