Zion Night Skies

We passed through Zion National Park on Friday evening after sunset - much later than anticipated. We left in plenty of time, but dilly dallied around in several places along the way and turned a 3-1/2 hour drive into about a 12-hour one. To be fair, we avoided the Interstate and took back roads, stopping at several small towns and locating ancestor's graves and just generally enjoying not having a deadline or set timeframe.

As we were passing through the park in the dark, I decided to check Sky Guide and sure enough, the Milky Way is high in the sky and the moon doesn't rise until very late. A perfect setup for some good night skies images. We are both beat, however, so we decided to sleep in the next morning and have our little photography experience the next night. The downside of that is the show we are here to see at Tuacahn won't get out until around 11:30 pm on Saturday, on the other side of St. George.

By 1:30 am we were set up at the "Bonsai Tree" waiting for some vehicles to provide a little light painting for us. Never happened, so we did a little painting ourselves and made some dark images as well.

"Bonsai Tree," Zion National Park, Kane County, Utah, USA, June 18, 2017, Nikon D90, Tamron SP 10-24mm f3.5-4.5 Di II LD Aspherical IF B001N at 10mm, Manual Exposure Mode, f/3.5 for 30 seconds, ISO 3200, processed in Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC.

The Watchman was well lit by the lights of Springdale as usual. I wanted to get a little reflection off the Virgin River, but that didn't turn out so well. Not enough reflected light from the sky and light painting catches more than the river, so. . . . I do have some ideas to try next time.

The Watchman, Zion National Park, Washington County, Utah, USA, June 18, 2017, Nikon D90, Tamron SP 10-24mm f3.5-4.5 Di II LD Aspherical IF B001N at 10mm, Manual Exposure Mode, f/3.5 for 30 seconds, ISO 3200, processed in Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC.

The Milky Way was too far up in the sky by 2:30 am to get the Meeting Hall and the Milky Way in a single image from the West side.  As I was experimenting, however, with various angles and set-ups, the moon began to rise in the East. That created the perfect light painting scenario for an image from the East of the Hall rather than the West.  This is one of my favorite images of the night!

Grafton, Washington County, Utah, USA, June 18, 2017, Nikon D90, Tamron SP 10-24mm f3.5-4.5 Di II LD Aspherical IF B001N at 10mm, Manual Exposure Mode, f/3.5 for 30 seconds, ISO 3200, processed in Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC.

As we were leaving to head back to St. George about 3:30 am, I wanted to stop and make a few images of the Rockville Bridge with the Milky Way behind and above and the tiniest amount of light painting from the moon.  Also one of my favorites.

Rockville Bridge, Rockville, Washington County, Utah, USA, June 18, 2017, Nikon D90, Tamron SP 10-24mm f3.5-4.5 Di II LD Aspherical IF B001N at 10mm, Manual Exposure Mode, f/3.5 for 30 seconds, ISO 3200, processed in Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC.

Chasing Clouds

We were not at all sure how tonight would turn out. The sunset was good, but lots of clouds and they seemed to be getting thicker by the minute. We originally planned to stay in Arroyo Hondo where we viewed the sunset from and try for some Milky Way images. However, it appeared that the clouds were just getting thicker there.

We decided to change our location from there to out between the Rio Grande Gorge and Tres Piedras. When we got there, the Milky Way was obscured by clouds. We decided to wait a bit and see, and were rewarded. The clouds never totally left, but this band of clouds provides a break between the Milky Way and the light painting on the horizon from Santa Fe. Most likely a better photo because of the cloud layer which seemed to be blocking the light from below.

Taos County, New Mexico, USA, August 28, 2016. Nikon D90, AF-S Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 at 18mm, Manual Exposure mode, f/3.5 for 30 seconds, ISO 3200, processed in Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC.

Perseids

The Perseids are a recurrent meteor shower created by the earth passing through the debris trail of the comet Swift–Tuttle. The Perseids are so called because the radiant, the point from which they appear to come, lies in the constellation Perseus.

The shower is visible from mid-July to late-August each year, with the peak in activity between August 9 and 14, depending on the particular location of the stream. During the peak, the rate of meteors reaches 60 or more per hour. Every several years, there is a "burst" event and the rate doubles or triples. 2016 is a "burst" year. They can be seen all across the sky; however, because of the shower’s radiant in the constellation of Perseus, the Perseids are primarily visible in the Northern Hemisphere. As with many meteor showers the visible rate is greatest in the pre-dawn hours, since more meteors are scooped up by the side of the Earth moving forward into the stream, corresponding to local times between midnight and noon. Some can also be seen before midnight, often grazing the Earth’s atmosphere to produce long bright trails and sometimes fireballs. Most Perseids burn up in the atmosphere while at heights above 50 miles.

This year the peak was the night between August 11 and August 12. Lauri and I decided to go out west of Fairfield to watch and try to get some images of the Milky Way and the Perseids. Most of our images were just like this one - not a bad shot of the Milky Way, but no Perseids.  Not that they were not around - there were lots of them, but not in the field of view of the camera or they were faint enough not to show up on the sensor.

Still, we did manage to capture a handful of images with Perseids in them. The first image, is so faint that it is easy to miss it, but the remainder are pretty good.

Fairfield, Utah County, Utah, USA, August 12, 2016. Nikon D5000, AF-S Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 at 18mm, Manual Exposure mode, f/3.5 for 30 seconds, ISO 3200, processed in Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC.

Milky Way

Lauri and I decided to go out west of Fairfield to watch the Perseid Meteor Shower and try to get some images of the Milky Way/Meteors.

When we first got there and got set up, the moon was still up and the light pollution from it was pretty severe for about an hour after it set. Eventually it did get dark and we managed to get some good images of the Milky Way, but the meteors were elusive! We saw lots of them,but most were either outside the field of view of the cameras or were not bright enough for the cameras' sensors to pick them up.

This is my favorite image of the set with a little light painting. Fairfield, Utah County, Utah, USA, August 12, 2016. Nikon D90, AF-S Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 at 18mm, Manual Exposure mode, f/3.5 for 30 seconds, ISO 3200, processed in Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC.

Light Pollution

We thought that going up onto the North side of Mount Timpanogos would be the perfect place to get some good Milky Way images. With no moon in the sky, we expected it to be very dark. Boy, were we wrong!  It never got dark. We could clearly see each other all night long.

These two images were taken 21 days apart, while there are many differences, the most striking is the effect of light pollution on the image. You can tell the Milky Way is there in the second one, but the detail and definition is lacking - washed out by the light from the southern Wasatch Front communities.

Bridge over the Virgin River, Zion National Park, Washington County, Utah, USA, July 9, 2016. Nikon D90, Tamron SP 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 Di II at 10mm, Manual Exposure mode, f/3.5 for 30 seconds, ISO 3200, processed in Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC.

Alpine Loop, American Fork Canyon, Mount Timpanogos Trailhead, Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, Utah, USA,, July 30, 2016. Nikon D90, AF-S Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 at 18mm, Manual Exposure mode, f/3.5 for 25 seconds, ISO 3200, processed in Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC.

A Comparison of White Balance

These two images of the Milky Way were taken from the Virgin River Bridge near the South entrance to Zion National Park. The lights from the town of Springdale, Utah are providing the reflected light on Watchman.

These two images are the same except for the White Balance setting. The first image was taken with White Balance set to "Auto" giving a color temperature of 4150 K. The second image is taken at 3550 K.

Bridge over the Virgin River, Zion National Park, Washington County, Utah, USA, July 9, 2016. Nikon D90, Tamron SP 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 Di II at 10mm, Manual Exposure mode, f/3.5 for 30 seconds, ISO 3200, processed in Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC.

Night Skies

Friday night I participated in the National Park Night Skies Photography Workshop sponsored by National Park Trips Media and Tamron USA in Zion National Park. It was taught by David Akoubian, Ken Hubbard and Andre Costantini and hosted by Rob Wood and Dave Krause. Cecil Holmes also helped teach. Had a great time learning and practicing and was able to capture some great images in the process.

A view of the Milky Way from the "Bonsai Tree". Special shout out to Andre Costantini for the light painting. Bonsai Tree, Zion National Park, Kane County, Utah, USA, July 9, 2016. Nikon D90, Tamron SP 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 Di II at 10mm, Manual Exposure mode, f/3.5 for 30 seconds, ISO 3200, processed in Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC.