September 2, 2020
Fossil Falls
Fossil Falls has neither fossils or falls. It's part of the large Coso lava field about midway between Ridgecrest and Owens Lake. At the end of the last Ice Age, as the glaciers melted off the Sierra large quantities of water flowed over these lava fields to lakes further south near present day Ridgecrest. Over time the lava eroded in one place to produce Fossil Falls. The area contains the Red Hill cinder cone, some interesting lava formations as well as really dark skies. The first set of photos were taken in July when I ventured up to Fossil Falls after shooting NEOWISE at the Red Cliffs. The second 2 shouts were taken about a month later when I went up to shoot the Perseid meteor shower.
Read MoreFossil Falls has neither fossils or falls. It's part of the large Coso lava field about midway between Ridgecrest and Owens Lake. At the end of the last Ice Age, as the glaciers melted off the Sierra large quantities of water flowed over these lava fields to lakes further south near present day Ridgecrest. Over time the lava eroded in one place to produce Fossil Falls. The area contains the Red Hill cinder cone, some interesting lava formations as well as really dark skies. The first set of photos were taken in July when I ventured up to Fossil Falls after shooting NEOWISE at the Red Cliffs. The second 2 shouts were taken about a month later when I went up to shoot the Perseid meteor shower.
Star Trails at the Red Hill
If you think you've seen this star trail before, you have. I was unhappy with my earlier effort and reprocessed the star trail from the original sourse files. Polaris is almost directly over the Red Hill as the motion of the earth makes the stars appear to rotate around Polaris. To the left of the Red Hill you can see an orange glow in the sky, that's the tail of NEOWISE.
