Tag Archives: night

Snowbirding 2020 Postcards: Traffic

Posted on by
Comment

I experience Phoenix rush hour traffic in my truck.

On Friday morning, I had to drive to Phoenix for the first day of a three-day art show. I had a setup window that required me to be there by about 7:30 AM. Because I’m camped out in the desert more than 100 miles west of there, I had to leave my camp at 5 AM.

I don’t like driving at night, but the moon was just past full and it illuminated the desert around me with a faint monochrome glow. There were few vehicles on I-10 at that hour — mostly semis — and I was able to easily maintain the 75 mph speed limit most of the way.

Google Maps
Here’s what I saw on Google Maps when I realized there was something wrong with the math.

I watched the readout on Google Maps on my iPhone as I got closer and closer to Phoenix. At one point, I noticed that the math didn’t seem right: I was moving along at 75 miles per hour and had only 38 miles to go, yet Google said it would take a full hour. How could that be? Even when I slowed down when the speed limit dropped to 65 and probably 55 in the city, I should still be able to make it in much less than an hour. Like maybe even 30 minutes.

What I hadn’t accounted for, of course, was rush hour traffic, which I experienced firsthand about 15 minutes later. Stop and go — just like I used to deal with when I had a “real job” in corporate America. I realized that it had been years since I’d been stuck in traffic like that — the kind of traffic where it takes you 15 minutes to go 3 miles. But this was traffic on steroids: at certain points, there were five lanes of vehicles completely stopped.

What was cool, however, was sitting up high in my big truck, being able to look over the tops of the sedans and compact cars ahead of me. I had never realized how much taller my truck was than the average passenger vehicle. There were few semis on this part of the road — I suspect the drivers were smart enough to exit for a truck stop breakfast instead of dealing with the mess. Instead, most vehicles were commuters with just one person per car, leaving the HOV lane pretty much open. And, as I could easily see, the red taillights went on for miles ahead of me.

I did make it to my destination on time. When I’d left camp at 4:57 AM, Google told me I’d arrive at 7:34 AM. I arrived at 7:35. That’s pretty amazing.

The Darkness of a Foggy Morning

Posted on by
2

A rare morning of darkness.

I woke up at 4:30 this morning, which isn’t all that unusual. What is unusual was how dark it was.

Yes, it’s true: the sun won’t rise this morning until 6:59 AM. Logic seems to dictate that it should be dark at 4:30. Yet is it seldom dark in my home.

While I live 2 miles down an unpaved (and unlighted) road that’s about 8 miles to the nearest town of any size — the City of Wenatchee, WA — and I’m surrounded by open land, orchards, and towering cliffs, the sad truth is that there’s enough light from Wenatchee and a handful of homes, orchards, and businesses within sight of my property to prevent it from ever getting really dark at my home. It’s not bright like Los Angeles or New York or even Phoenix, but it’s bright enough that my home, which has lots of curtain-free windows — who needs curtains when there’s no one around to look in? — has no need for night lights and nighttime sky viewing was disappointing enough for me to sell my telescope.

Light pollution is what I’d call it.

Don’t get me wrong — I don’t mind all those lights. From my home, which is perched high above the city, all those lights can be quite beautiful at night. As I likely recounted elsewhere on my blog, they remind me of the view from the “rich people’s hill” my dad would occasionally take us for a drive up at night. My view is better than that was, of course, stretching 50 miles or more up to the North Cascades during the day. At night, I see most of Wenatchee and East Wenatchee, including the lights at the airport, which should be blinking right now (at 5:45 AM) in preparation for the airliner’s first departure of the day.

But I can’t see any of that right now. The lights are gone, blanketed by a thick fog that might, at this point, even surround me. I have no way of knowing because it is so dark.

It wasn’t that dark when I woke briefly at 1:45 AM. I knew immediately that it was foggy out, but the nearly full moon kept the sky bright. I went to my bedroom window for a look outside and saw the hillside behind my house and the top of the fog bank stretching as far as I could see.

When I rolled out of bed sometime after 5, I challenged myself to find my way to the kitchen without turning on a light. That’s something that I do every day, but it was a challenge this morning. What finally drew me in, like a moth to a porch light, was the light cast by numerous devices in my kitchen, great room, and loft: the clock on my microwave and stove and kitchen stereo. The blue status light on my Wink hub. The green status light on an Airport Express I use for music sharing. The blinking blue lights on my Internet router. A steady glowing red light on the power strip behind the television. Those lights were like beacons that brought out the dim details of an all-too-familiar space. I stood in the entrance to my kitchen area for a moment, taking inventory of all those tiny lights, and then flicked the light switch to officially start my day.

Now I’m sitting at the breakfast bar in my kitchen, typing away on my laptop with a hot cup of coffee beside me. Other than the tiny light I’ve already listed, four blown glass track light fixtures with halogen bulbs are illuminating the room. Out the window beside me that normally shows so many amazing views from my aerie is nothing but blackness.

Soon, it will get light enough for me see whether I’m in or over the fog bank. Eventually, the sunlight will poke its fingers through whatever clouds are above me to brighten the day. I’ll likely take some pictures and share them on Twitter, as I so often do.

But for now, I think I’ll turn off the lights, find a comfortable seat by the window, and sip my coffee in the darkness, enjoying this rare event while it lasts.

Snowbirding 2018 Postcards: Fireside at Camp

Posted on by
3

Out in the desert, when the sun goes down, it’s like Mother Nature turned the heat off. It might have been in the 70s all day, but the temperature takes a plunge after sunset and a campfire is pretty much required if you want to hang out outdoors.

We spent about an hour gathering wood on Wednesday morning — mostly mesquite and salt cedar — and added that to the six aspen (or birch?) logs I’d brought south with me from a camp in Idaho back in October. While we were out boating in the afternoon, a friend stopped by looking for us. When he saw the large pieces of wood we’d gathered, he kindly used his chainsaw to cut them into manageable pieces. (Reminds me of a fairy tale where people put their damaged shoes out on the doorstep at night and elves repaired them. This elf’s name is Steve.)

As usual, my friend Janet got the fire going before it was dark and we sat around it to chat, eat dinner, and then chat some more.

It night was a great night for star gazing, too. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the area is very dark. With a meteor shower on the calendar, I took out my Nikon and set it up for night photography. We had a clear view of the horizon to the east and watched Orion rise. The meteors came soon afterward, averaging about one per minute as NASA had forecasted.

I tried (and failed) to get a photo of one, but I did make this photo of our campsite in the firelight, with Janet sitting by the fire. A car happened to drive by during the 30-second exposure, illuminating assorted bits and pieces of the scene. I have a darker shot, too, but I like this one better.

Fireside camp

Autumn 2017 Roadtrip Postcards: The Night Sky Photos 

Posted on by
4

So far, I’ve attempted night sky photography in two places: Horsethief Campground Just outside of Canyonlands National Park and Lower Onion Creek Campground in Castle Valley about 25 miles from Moab. In both cases, I shot before dawn because a waxing crescent moon illuminated the night sky until after I’d gone to bed. I’m not really happy with any of the images, but I thought I’d share four.
At Horsethief, the problem was that the night sky didn’t really get dark enough and there were some light clouds.

The night sky to the southwest. You can clearly see Orion’s Belt.


My Truck and camper, parked under the night sky. The light in the camper is a candle.


At Lower Onion Creek, the Sky was very dark. But the problem there was wind. Although I have my camera on a very sturdy tripod and stayed on the west side of the camper so it would shield me, there was enough movement to blur the stars. Very disappointing!

Milky Way on the left, Big Dipper on the right.

Another night sky shot with disappointing focus.

Snowbirding 2017: Astrophotography

Posted on by
Comment

Practice makes perfect. I’m practicing.

I have more than the average amount of free time in my life and I like to put it to good use doing and learning things. Last September, I took an astrophotography class at the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center. You can read about the class and see some of the photos I took during our field trip in this blog post.

What I learned about shooting the night sky is that it’s very easy to do if you have the right equipment. Fortunately, I do: a DSLR with full manual mode, a very wide angle (10mm) lens, and a sturdy tripod. The hardest thing to do is to find skies dark enough to see enough stars to make the effort worthwhile.

We had dark enough skies in the North Cascades, despite ambient light from the nearby dam and occasional passing car. I don’t have dark enough skies at home, though — the glow from Wenatchee is surprisingly (and disappointingly) bright. And although I camped at more than a few places that should have been dark enough for night sky photography, most weren’t.

Or if I found a place that should have dark enough skies, the sky was overcast while I was there. Or the moon was in the sky, illuminating it so only the brightest stars showed.

Cibola
I like this shot of my RV parked on the levee along the Colorado River. I had to crop it square to get rid of the light from the town of Cibola, which is still in the shot.

I did have some success back in January when I camped out along the Colorado River near the Cibola National Wildlife Refuge in southwestern Arizona. I shared one of those photos in a blog post about the campsites I’ve been finding.

The one I didn’t share was a bit more challenging and I’m not sure if I successfully pulled it off. (Maybe you can tell me?) The bright point of light in the sky is Venus. I wanted to catch its reflection in the Colorado River, which I did. Unfortunately, although it was long past sunset, there was still a bit of a glow to the west. I think it’s from towns and homes off in the distance, but who knows?

Venus Reflected
It’s nearly impossible to include the horizon in a night photography shot without some sort of glow from terrestrial lighting.

I got a chance to practice again in Death Valley National Park, on my third night in the park. The first two nights were too cloudy and the moon was nearly full anyway. But the third night offered a window of opportunity between the end of twilight and before the waning gibbous moon came up. I was parked in Greenwater Valley with some mountains behind the camper. It was very dark outside and the sky was full of stars. I took eight shots. I think these two are the best.

Death Valley Night Sky
This was my first shot of the evening with the camera pointed pretty much straight up. It features the Milky Way with the Pleiades near the center and Orion’s Belt almost cropped off the top.

Death Valley Night Sky
In this shot, I pointed the camera up above the mountains behind the camper. You can see the big dipper just above the horizon. Once again, there’s the glow from something out there; it’s not the sun because I was pointed east.

I think photos are more interesting with something in the foreground. The one with my camper works for me. So does the one with Venus and its reflection. I guess the challenge is going someplace with something interesting to frame in the foreground and possibly “light paint” it with a lantern or something. It wouldn’t take much. The only light in my camper in the above shot was from a single tea light candle burning on the dining table inside. It looks as if I have multiple lights on!

I enjoy doing this, although I admit I’d likely enjoy it more with companions on the same sort of mission. Because my remote shutter release doesn’t work — I think it needs a new battery (again) — I have to use the camera’s self-timer as a shutter release. That adds 10 seconds to a 30 second exposure with about 30 seconds of processing time before an image finally appears. A lot of time standing around by myself in the dark. The field trip I took at the North Cascades class was a bit more of a crowd than I like, but at least it kept things interesting.

I hope to get at least one more chance to experiment with this kind of photography on my trip, but I’m not sure when. Most of my remaining destinations are not well known for their dark skies. I’ll see how I do.