August 21, 2017
Being that Joshua Tree is a bit of a drive(almost 200 miles to the shooting locations), I decided to see if there was a location that was a bit closer to the cave that would provide enough darkness to photograph the Milky Way. So after consulting the DarkSkyFinder.com light pollution map, I settled on a location about 90 miles northwest(as the crow flies) of Downtown Los Angeles in Lockwood Valley at the foot of Mt. Pinos. I was somewhat familiar with the area since the Boy Scout Camp(Camp Three Falls) is in the valley and I ended up setting up my gear on the Boy Scout Camp Road. Also since my last trip to Joshua Tree, I’d purchased a “Red Intensifier” filter, which is said to reduce some of the yellow cast you see from light pollution. The first 5 pictures are from this shooting session. The last two pictures are from Joshua Tree since I noticed something in one of the picture that I thought was interesting and I acquired some new software to do panorama stitching that made some panorama shots that I’d take usable.
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The Milky Way just after sunset.
This was my first capture after the sun had set and it was dark enough to visually see the Milky Way. At the left side of the picture you can see the yellow glow from the lights in LA(Santa Clarita being about 35 miles away). I had forgotten that I’d brought the “Red Intensifier” filter, so I hadn’t put it on the camera. This shot is a composite of a shot taken at 20 seconds for the sky and a shot with an exposure of 60 seconds for the foreground. I liked how the bushes in the foreground look white, almost look like the shot was taken in IR.
