While is the midst of a lame weather pattern like the current one, the tour tries to make up for a lack of storms with pretty scenery.  We left Raton, NM, and headed to Taos, NM, for lunch.  Our route to Taos was through spectacular Cimarron Canyon.  At one point in the canyon, where the sheer cliffs tower hundreds of feet above the Cimarron River, a sign says that you must have a permit to stop along the turnout and view the canyon area.  A ranger drove by, stopped in the middle of the road, and yelled “YOU GOTTA BUY A PERMIT”!  Right — we are gonna buy a permit to stop here for five minutes to admire the surroundings.  Silly.

Anyhow, we found a delicious Mexican Restaurant in Taos (Randy’s?), and the food was good there, too.  Enough monsoon-like moisture at mid-levels was in place for mountain storms in the area.  One of these was back to our east a little, so we headed back through the canyon, past the spot where we saw some deer on the way in, and observed a high-based junky thing that bordered on interesting and pretty.    This was around Springer and Wagon Mound, along I-25.

The weak convection dissipated towards sunset, and I was able to grab some nice sunset stills while we headed north back to Raton.

Later that evening, I took several of the guests some 15-20 miles east of Raton (via Yankee, NM) to view the nice, dark starry skies.  Despite an elevation of about 8000 feet, the weather was quite mild and the winds were calm—quite unbelievable for late April!

It isn’t quite as mysterious as the Marfa Lights, but perhaps it is a bit more elusive.  The Zodiacal Light is best viewed just after dusk in late February and early March, and is visible only from very dark skies.  I managed to get some images of it in March of 2010, and I was eager to take more.  The moon was near its new phase on the weekend of February 18/19, so I had a window of several days around then.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have any days off from work in order to get more than 200 miles away from L.A.  Ideally, I would have liked to have headed to the Death Valley area again to photograph the Zodiacal Light, but it is five hours away, and I wasn’t interested in the rushed, long drive there and back…and going back to work in Zombie Mode.

On this Sunday afternoon I was contemplating a drive to a remote area in the opposite corner of my county.  Would skies be dark enough there to allow the ZL to be viewed?  I live in the far southeastern part of Ventura County, not too far from the San Fernando Valley and the City of Los Angeles.  Good luck seeing the Milky Way, much less the ZL, from here  (unless an earthquake knocks out all of the power on a clear night).  Mid- and high-level clouds were clearing out nicely and haze was not much of an issue, so around 4 p.m. I hit the road (west on the 101).  My destination —- the mountainous area of extreme northwestern Ventura County, towards Ozena and Cuyama and the western edge of the Pine Mountain area.  This region is fairly empty, by California standards.  There is little or no civilization to the west until you get to the Santa Maria area, more than 80 miles away.  Los Angeles and Bakersfield are still uncomfortably close (about 75-100 miles away, to the southeast and north-northeast, respectively), but since the ZL would be to the west and not towards any big city, this might not matter too much.

From Ventura I headed north on Route 33 through Ojai and into the mountains.  The road rises to a little over 5000 feet, and the temperature fell into the 30s.  The wind was a little strong in some spots—yuck.  I went over the pass and down the hill to Ozena and Lockwood Valley Road.  This area should work out just fine with regard to dark skies, but I found it difficult to find a good low horizon to the west.  Route 33 was too close to the hills and mountains to the west.  I decided to head west on Lockwood Valley Road a few miles.  The horizon here was just fine, there was no traffic, and the stars were beginning to shine brightly!  Best of all, there was no wind, but it was getting chilly really fast.  The elevation was about 3800 ft, and it had taken about two hours to reach this spot.

I was interested primarily in getting wide angle shots to the west of the ZL, but I took several images in other directions, too.  I had my Canon 5D Mark II on the tripod and took primarily exposures of 10 to 30 seconds in length at F2.8 to 3.5, ISO 800 to 1600.  The stars were not tracked.

5708 (below) shows a strong hint of ZL, even though there is still light of dusk remaining.  The ZL extends in a slightly slanted fashion from the middle horizon, and upward along the ecliptic (through Venus and Jupiter).  It is a milky white and somewhat broad beam of light, due to sunlight reflecting off of interplanetary matter in our solar system.

About the same time, I took a shot towards the southeast (5709).  The glow is due to Los Angeles and vicinity.  The bright star front and center is Sirius, with Orion above and to the right.  5712 is to the north and NNW, towards the lights of Bakersfield.  the Big Dipper is rising on the right-hand side.  Next, 5715 looks east down the road, with the Big Dipper in the lower left, and Gemini at the top.  Keep in mind that most of these are very wise angle—16mm!  Below Gemini is a small fuzzy patch, called the Beehive Cluster (M44).

We are looking back to the west again and the ZL in 5717, with someone’s headlights lighting up the road.  The bright stars in the upper right are part of Cassiopeia, and the fuzzy patch below and to the left of those (towards Venus) is the Andromeda Galaxy (M31).  This galaxy shows up a little better in 5731 (at the top of this page).

5721 is a 35 mm shot of Orion and vicinity, with Sirius near the bottom left and the Hyades near the upper right.

5724 is another shot of the ZL, and not as wide angle as most of these (probably about 35mm).  This exposure is close to how it appeared to the naked eye.  It was fairly easy to detect, but was not especially obvious.  A person who was not familiar with the ZL probably would not have noticed it or commented on it, as it can easily be mistaken for the last light of dusk.  When I saw the ZL for the first time two years ago from Jubilee Pass in Death Valley, it was stunning and much more prominent.   This evening I was more impressed with how bright Venus appeared, and I was wondering if its presence might have diminished the ZL a little.  I could see my own shadow due to Venus!

Next sequentially and chronologically is 5731 (top of the page).  This is likely when the ZL was at its brightest, and the exposure was extended and artificially bumped up some in PS to make the ZL more obvious (20mm, f3.5, 63 seconds, ISO 1250).  5734 is a couple of minutes later as a vehicle passed (17mm, f4.0, 75 seconds, ISO 1000).  5741 is a 32mm shot to the ESE, towards Canis Major and Sirius.  The open cluster M41 is barely visible below Sirius.  For fun, I brightened this one up and enlarged it and put it at the end (click it to make it even bigger–whooohoo!).  5749 is one last look to the north, at the Big Dipper and vicinity.  The ZL was already fading by now (around 8:30 p.m.) and it was freezing cold (27F).  Time to get outta here!

Below are a bunch of images to give you a good sense of what I observed between about 5:15 a.m. and 6:30 a.m.   Sunrise was at about 6:50 a.m.   Most of the moon images are with the 70-200mm lens, with the Canon 5D.  A few are with the Canon 40D, which has the 1.6X conversion factor and makes the 200mm setting the equivalent of a 320mm setting.  Still, even at full zoom, quite a bit of cropping was necessary in editing to “blow up” the moon image to a decent size.  Check out the medium-bright star very close to the moon, at about 8 o’clock position.

The darkest skies within a reasonable distance from Los Angeles are probably those in the Death Valley region, in which you can find yourself 50 to 100 miles from a town of any size, and 100 to 200 miles from the gaudy lights of L.A., the Antelope Valley, Vegas, and Fresno.  That requires a 4 to 5-hour drive from my house, and more than 100 bucks in gas—boo hiss.  Plan Two—go to mom’s place, a little over 2 hours away!  On this Monday I was visiting my mom at her home in Palm Desert.  The Milky Way is dimly visible just outside her back door on most nights, but my 30-second exposure of the sky from here showed more light pollution than Milky Way.  I needed to get farther away from the L.A. megalopolis and the towns in the Coachella Valley.

At 7 p.m. I headed east on Interstate 10.  There is basically nothing along I-10 between Indio and Blythe, except for tiny Desert Center.  I wasn’t too concerned with the local light pollution at Desert Center, so that was my Milky Way target site!  About 50 miles from Palm Desert and Indio I came into Desert Center, and the Milky Way was blazing across the sky—YES!  I stopped in town to snap a couple of shots, and then headed north on Route 177.  The lights of Desert Center were a tad annoying, so it seemed prudent to set up a little farther north, on the east side of Joshua Tree National Park.  I went about 15 miles NNE on 177, a few miles past the jog where 177 goes from northeast to more to the north.  I pulled off to the west side of 177 into the tiny flat parking area for a communications tower.  I set up where the very tall tower was to my east, and not in the way of my precious Milky Way.  A light was illuminated on the little building next to the tower — what was up with that?!  A couple of minutes later it was off—I think it went on when a sensor detected my vehicle motion.

The night sky here was very, very nice and quite dark, though not quite as dark as the Death Valley area, as I expected.  The L.A. region and Coachella Valley are still a little too close for Death Valley-like skies, and there was a dim glow to the west and southwest.  I was happy, nonetheless!  I even saw a couple of bright meteors diving towards the southwest in my first minute or two here.

I plopped the 5D onto the tripod and shot mostly 25 to 30-second exposures at f2.8 with my 16-35 and 28-70mm lenses.  The star trails aren’t too obnoxious at 30 seconds at 16mm.  I had the ISO set from about 1600 to 2400.  Any higher than that, and the grain issues increase to unacceptable levels.  (Obviously, if I had had my Celestron telescope set up here, I could have taken longer exposures at lower ISOs by piggy-backing the camera to the scope and tracking the stars.)  I shot the sky to the southwest, where the Milky Way was nose-diving into the horizon.  I took a handful of the Milky Way in the “summer triangle” area that was nearly overhead (Vega/Deneb/Altair), plus a couple of the Big Dipper, on the horizon to the north, and the Andromeda Galaxy and vicinity up in the northeast.

By the way, the weather here was quite pleasant, with light winds and a temperature in the mid-80s.  There were some annoying small bugs around, though, that were intent on landing on my arms and legs.  I didn’t wind up with any mosquito bites, so apparently they were harmless!  I spent about 90 minutes here, and then went back to nearby 177 and shot a few “down-the-road” shots towards Desert Center and the I-10 corridor.  I flashed my high beams for a half second to light up the foreground.

By the way, the “comments” on Stormbruiser have been closed up until recently.  I have opened up the comments section —- so feel free to chime in if you have something to say.  Let me know, too, if you have any trouble posting a comment (my e-mail is bill@stormbruiser.com).

Above—two images in Desert Center, and three towards the southwest horizon, where Sagittarius is setting.

Above—the summer triangle region, Sagittarius, a meteor through the Milky Way, and a wide view to the southwest with the Milky Way above the urban glow of the Coachella Valley and L.A.

Above—the Andromeda Galaxy and vicinity, the Big Dipper, Lyra, and the Milky Way in the summer triangle region (including the constellations Cygnus, Lyra, and Aquila)

Above—a view to the southwest along 177 towards Desert Center