On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether youâre traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
In case you missed this morning’s On the Road, those photos were taken at the same location we see this evening, only those photos were taken during the daytime. Â Tonightâs photos are night sky photos of the same location! Â (For more background on the trip, check out the introduction from this morning.) Â You are in for a treat â these are some of my favorites of Bill’s photos. ~WaterGirl
BillinGlendaleCA
The area around the trailhead has some nice rock formation that would make for good foregrounds and isn’t one of the more popular locations in the park for astro photography so it wouldn’t be too crowded. The area around the trailhead also has a nice rocks that frame the sunset which I made use of then as well as last year.
Most of us had never shot in a dark location before, so the concepts of shooting foregrounds separately or light (though difficult if not impossible with a group) were still foreign. When I revisited my shots from that visit last year I discovered that I’d shot some photos of the area before dark that I could use for the foreground.
Joshua Tree had been closed for several months due to the pandemic. Once the park had reopened, I asked my wife if she’d like to join me on a trip to the park and she expressed interest. I decided that the Ryan Mountain trailhead would be a good location to revisit since it has a large parking lot for out “base camp” and nearby interesting foregrounds.
I planned to shoot 3 shots: a multirow panorama, a startrail and a recreation of the shot from 3 years ago. I managed to get 2 out of 3; the startrail failed because when I moved the camera to where I wanted to shoot the startrail the lens moved from 16mm to 20mm, so the entire set was out of focus.
While waiting for the startrail (fail) to finish shooting (I shot for a hour and a half), I shot some other shots of the Milky Way from along the Ryan Mountain trail and then moved to the Indian Cave trail where we’d shot 3 years earlier. This time I had some lighting that I could employ to bring out the foregrounds a bit better.
Shooting panoramas in the dark is a pretty difficult task since it’s difficult to make sure you’re properly overlapping the frames. I recently purchased a device (MIOPS Capsule 360) to automate shooting panoramas. You program in the angle, overlap, and lens information on your smartphone and it takes care of the movement and triggering the shutter. I used an L-bracket with a manual pano head to move from one row to the next.
A lone joshua tree along the Ryan Mountain trail points to the Milky Way’s galactic center.
I saw this rather creepy tree and thought it’d make a nice foreground. I lit up the tree and the rocks to the right.
Light from Palm Springs filters over the hills and rocks.
This is the shot from my first visit to Joshua Tree in 2017, the rock in the foreground has burn marks on it suggesting it was used for cooking under, hence the name Indian Cave.
This shot was taken just a few feet away from where the 2017 shot was taken, you can see the charcoal marks on the foreground rock. I wasn’t able to take the shot from the exact place since it was later in the evening and the Milky way was more to the south.
Medium Cool with BGinCHI â 13 Going On 30!
WaterGirl
I love these photos so much!
Villago Delenda Est
BillinGlendale, simply GLORIOUS!
Wag
Holy mackerel. What fantastic shots. I need to learn to shoot the stars and Milky Way like that. You are an artist.
Jay
Beautiful. Someday, maybe during Bidenâs Second Term, Iâll be able to safely go back and visit places in the US again, climb in Joshua Tree again, do some canyoneering south of Vegas.
Post defund, post Truth and Reconciliation, once the US is de-Nazified.
Yutsano
Bill, I don’t want to tell you what to do, but you really need to get out before sunrise tomorrow morning. You may already know, but there’s a comet making a great show in the sky in the morning. It will be visible in the evening next week but no guarantees it will be shining by then.
BigJimSlade
Very nice – thanks @BillinGlendaleCA! A few years ago I brought my camera to Joshua Tree NP in November (Black Friday, turns out it was a popular thing to do, so was going to the casino and outlet mall on the road there, which caused *much* traffic on the highway). That’s when I found out that you see the Milky Way in summer.
I mean, c’mon, I didn’t know a view of the GALAXY was seasonal.
Jay
Benw
Man those are BEAUTIFUL. I love the thought that my tiny human brain finds the light from clusters of millions of suns whose light has taken millions of years to hit my retinas (or in this case your camera) beautiful!
?BillinGlendaleCA
Remember any of my photos featured here at “On The Road” are available for purchase(prints or downloads) at my website:
https://www.billinglendaleca.com/
If you’d like to support my work on an ongoing basis, consider becoming a a patron at my Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: Thanks, I really wish the star trails had worked…sobs.
@Villago Delenda Est: Thanks, one thing that was different from my previous visits to Joshua Tree is much less air traffic.
@Wag: Thanks, I’m still trying to get the light painting right. I got a light panel and that helps.
@Jay: It should still be there…and you spelled “Truth and Retribution” wrong.
ljt
Magical!
Jay
Jay
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
can I steal that?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Benw: Thanks, for the stars in the Milky Way the light gets here a bit quicker, 10’s of thousands years. Now for my pics of M31, that’s millions of years.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@ljt: Thanks, I’m headed back to reshoot the star trails soon. My patrons got to see the fail. I’ve got a few more ideas for Joshua Tree, I’m trying to avoid the popular places(due to the ‘rona and I want to do light painting).
@Jay: Sure, it’s public domain.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Yutsano: I’m already on it, I ordered my “America The Beautiful” pass today. In the next few days I’m headed either to J Tree or Fossil Falls(on 395).
@BigJimSlade: You can see the Milky Way any time of the year, just not the galactic center here in the northern hemisphere. The folk down under get a MUCH BETTER view(I’m not bitter). I know that casino, they were doing road work on the 10 right by there when we went there to shoot these photos. Four lanes to one lane, took 3 1/2 hours to get to J Tree.
They say confession is good for the soul…I’ve never paid the entrance fee to get into Joshua Tree National Park. Since I go at night(the earliest I’ve entered the park was around 6pm on a Saturday), the entrance booths were not staffed. I’ve left before dawn, again there’s no one there to take your $30. The reason I got the annual pass is that I want to shoot pics of the comet and the sunrise and when I’d leave I’d probably have to pay.
Leto
Amazing pictures Bill.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Leto: Thanks, glad you like them.
CaseyL
Stunning photos. Do you ever, when you go out to shoot the Milk Way, just lay down on your back to watch the galaxy circle above you? (It might not move fast enough to actually watch, but you know what I mean.)
I do that on the very rare occasions I’m someplace the stars are that visible *and* there is someplace to lie down that I won’t get run over by a car or eaten by a bear. Just staring at the stars takes me out of myself like almost nothing else does.
(Mountains have that effect, too.)
mrmoshpotato
Out of this world!
Sorry.
Great pictures, Bill! Thanks for sharing.
Jay
Beauty, ( thanks Bill) and horror . 2020 sucks other than the beauty, and caring, and community.
âBy their masks and gloves, ye shall know them!â
Revalations, Covid 19.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@CaseyL: Maybe on my first trip to J Tree, but now I’m too busy getting the shot, figuring out lighting…Â Madame does that, sits in a chair having a beer while I’m shooting until she gets bored and takes a nap.
In the desert I’m more concerned about mountain lions, coyotes and rattlesnakes.
@mrmoshpotato: Thanks, J Tree does look like another world.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jay: You should read about Mary Kay’s father John Schmitz*, her family life explains quite a lot.
Growing up here in SoCal, I knew about State Senator/Congressman Schmitz, I didn’t know that Mary Kay was his daughter until Opiejeanne mentioned it.
Benw
@?BillinGlendaleCA: so I was off by a couple orders of magnitude. My basic sentiment stands! :)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Benw: Yup, it’s still a very long time.
Jay
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
whatta piece of work he was. First time I ever thought âyay, Cancerâ.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jay: You know it’s bad when B-1 Bob is the rational guy. The OC had a whole bunch of nutcase politicians back then.
BigJimSlade
@?BillinGlendaleCA: That night (Black Friday) the line to get a room at the Motel 6 was 6 groups long at 7pm (we didn’t really plan this). The wait to get food at the local (29 Palms) Thai restaurant was over an hour, with only 3 people working there, including the one man in the kitchen. The area was totally overwhelmed! Then we went back in to the park and I tried my hand at a few night shots – not very successful, and it was very cold – they don’t tell you much about handling a camera for night exposures when you can’t see and your freezing. And I only have a gorilla pod for a tripod that I put on the roof of my car, so it was harder to look through the camera and all that.
If you got the annual pass, no guilt … this year :-)
Also (regarding views of the center of the Milky Way), I guess I should start planning my trip to Punta Arenas now and pray for no clouds ;-) or have a very flexible schedule and return flight ticket.
rikyrah
Gorgeous ??
?BillinGlendaleCA
@BigJimSlade: Yeah, autofocus doesn’t work for astrophotography. you have to find a bright star and get that as small as possible, then frame your shot. I’ve been up to Red Rock and Lockwood Valley and know about the cold, the kid had the same problem when she was in New Zealand.
Technically, you can’t actually see the area around the actual center of the galaxy(the center of the galaxy is a super massive black hole known as sgtAStar) due to a dust cloud between us and there which blocks visible light.
If you want to see what it looks like in the southern hemisphere, check out Nightscape Images .
?BillinGlendaleCA
@rikyrah: Thanks.
BigJimSlade
@?BillinGlendaleCA: You know how these new (ie, made for digital cameras) lenses you can keep twisting for focus in either direction forever – there’s no set infinity or nearest focal point. It would be nice it they had a button (or a function in the camera) that you could press for either case, but especially for infinity.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@BigJimSlade: Yeah, my lens work that way. Usually I just point to a bright star and as it comes into focus the dimmer stars around it shot up. The other alternative is a bahtinov mask.