July 10, 2019
This set of photos is part 1 of a two part set. This submission has shots from a trip to Zzyzx which is on the road to Las Vegas and a return to Joshua Tree.
Zzyzx
Anybody from LA who's driven to Las Vegas has seen the mysterious sign Zzyzx Rd. as you approach Baker, CA. There's actually a Zzyzx at the southern end of that road. It began as a "heath spa"(it was a sham worthy of a Trump) and was eventually closed down by the Feds. The buildings there are now the Desert Research Center of the Cal State University system(it's not affiliated with any campus). The Dark Sky Finder web site https://darksitefinder.com/maps/world.html#4/39.00/-98.00) shows Zzyzx as almost as dark as Amboy Crater and has a small lake, so I wanted to check it out. I also wanted to test out my latest addition to my camera collection, a Samsung Galaxy NX(it's an Android based camera). Madame and I headed out for what Google Maps said would be a 3 hour trip(2 1/2 hours and change without traffic), the trip ended up taking 4 hours. We arrived just after sunset and as it started to get dark we noticed a haze to the east. That haze was the stars and the band of the Milky Way starting to come into view with the fading sunlight. It was also very windy, so though I'd packed the sky tracker, I didn't think it'd work with the gusts of wind. I took a couple of test shots with the new(to me) camera and they looked good and then sent one to a fellow photographer since we had cell service(this would come back to haunt me). I took shots next to the lake(fisheye to the east with the new camera and wide angle to the southeast with my NX1).
Joshua Tree
After I sent my fellow photographer the picture, he wanted to go to Joshua Tree the next day. Madame thought this was madness, but the next afternoon I was driving off to Joshua Tree. As with the trip to Xyzzx, the drive took about 4 hours. We headed into the park and parked at the same place where we'd(my fellow photographer organizes the meetups) shot the Milky Way 2 years ago. I wanted to head there first to get some shots of the sunset. He wanted to shot at Arch Rock, so we took his car there and shot some pics and then shot at another location on the return to our central meeting place and my car.
The Milky Way from Zzyzx(fisheye).
One of the things I discovered about the Galaxy NX camera is it doesn't produce RAW and JPG files like my other cameras. So to send the file to my fellow photographer, I had to switch the camera to produce JPG's. I shot the shot to send him and sent it, and then didn't change the camera back to RAW. RAW files capture what the camera's sensor sees, while JPG's take that information and alters it with the camera's white balance, noise reduction and exposure level and then compresses the file. It's fine for snapshots, but doesn't work well for shots of the Milky Way. So this shot is not the best, but I decided to include it anyway since it shows a wide view of the area. On the right you see the CSU Desert Research Center(the old spa buildings), moving to the center you can see a small light dome(light on the horizon) the emits from Laughlin, NV(about 85 miles away), and to the left you can see the trail of head lights of I-15 and the bright light dome from Las Vegas(also about 85 miles away).
