{"id":5912,"date":"2011-09-26T00:00:03","date_gmt":"2011-09-26T08:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/?p=5912"},"modified":"2011-10-03T14:34:09","modified_gmt":"2011-10-03T22:34:09","slug":"september-26-2011-desert-center-milky-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/2011\/09\/26\/september-26-2011-desert-center-milky-way\/","title":{"rendered":"September 26, 2011 Desert Center Milky Way"},"content":{"rendered":"

My Canon 5D Mark II loves taking pictures in the dark, so it dragged me out to the middle of the desert on a clear night during a new moon.\u00a0 I was interested in getting some images of the summer Milky Way, too, and this seemed like a perfect opportunity!<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 That requires a 4 to 5-hour drive from my house, and more than 100 bucks in gas—boo hiss.\u00a0 Plan Two—go to mom’s place, a little over 2 hours away!\u00a0 On this Monday I was visiting my mom at her home in Palm Desert.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I needed to get farther away from the L.A. megalopolis and the towns in the Coachella Valley.<\/p>\n

At 7 p.m. I headed east on Interstate 10.\u00a0 There is basically nothing along I-10 between Indio and Blythe, except for tiny Desert Center.\u00a0 I wasn’t too concerned with the local light pollution at Desert Center, so that was my Milky Way target site!\u00a0 About 50 miles from Palm Desert and Indio I came into Desert Center, and the Milky Way was blazing across the sky—YES!\u00a0 I stopped in town to snap a couple of shots, and then headed north on Route 177.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I went about 15 miles NNE on 177, a few miles past the jog where 177 goes from northeast to more to the north.\u00a0 I pulled off to the west side of 177 into the tiny flat parking area for a communications tower.\u00a0 I set up where the very tall tower was to my east, and not in the way of my precious Milky Way.\u00a0 A light was illuminated on the little building next to the tower — what was up with that?!\u00a0 A couple of minutes later it was off—I think it went on when a sensor detected my vehicle motion.<\/p>\n

The night sky here was very, very nice and quite dark, though not quite as dark as the Death Valley area, as I expected.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I was happy, nonetheless!\u00a0 I even saw a couple of bright meteors diving towards the southwest in my first minute or two here.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 The star trails aren’t too obnoxious at 30 seconds at 16mm.\u00a0 I had the ISO set from about 1600 to 2400.\u00a0 Any higher than that, and the grain issues increase to unacceptable levels.\u00a0 (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.)\u00a0 I shot the sky to the southwest, where the Milky Way was nose-diving into the horizon.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

By the way, the weather here was quite pleasant, with light winds and a temperature in the mid-80s.\u00a0 There were some annoying small bugs around, though, that were intent on landing on my arms and legs.\u00a0 I didn’t wind up with any mosquito bites, so apparently they were harmless!\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I flashed my high beams for a half second to light up the foreground.<\/p>\n

By the way, the “comments” on Stormbruiser have been closed up until recently.\u00a0 I have opened up the comments section —- so feel free to chime in if you have something to say.\u00a0 Let me know, too, if you have any trouble posting a comment (my e-mail is bill@stormbruiser.com).<\/p>\n

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Above—two images in Desert Center, and three towards the southwest horizon, where Sagittarius is setting.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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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)<\/p>\n

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Above—a view to the southwest along 177 towards Desert Center<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Canon 5D Mark II loves taking pictures in the dark, so it dragged me out to the middle of the desert on a clear… [Read More]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[44,21],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5912","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-44","7":"category-astronomy","8":"entry","9":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5912"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5932,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5912\/revisions\/5932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}