Mission Failed: Photograph the Milky Way.

Yesterday was a new moon so my brothers and I decided to go to Joshua Tree National Park, the darkest place we could think of in SoCal to photograph the Milky Way.  A great plan or so I thought.

But unlike Hannibal Smith, my plan did not come together.   There were issues, obviously it was dark, we relied heavily on (too bright of) flashlights to avoid 20 foot falls.  This meant we lost our night vision every time someone turned on a light, this made it difficult to check focus; that plus we were unable to find a steady spot (rock) for the tripods, but my worst mistake was assuming (hoping) the infinity symbol on my lens was actually infinity.  It was not, it actually went past it a bit, and who says there is nothing after infinity.   Well every photo of the Milky Way was out of focus, but I can tell you that it was great to see the stars once again; it reminded me of my youth in BFE Zac, MX.

I did however manage to get two photos of the rock during my initial scouting mission, just use your imagination and see this rock (in focus) surrounded by a celestial cloud of stars again in focus, well that is how it looked and the trip was well worth the sleep deprivation, hunger, and rattlesnakes.

To all the Facebook people, I’ve been very busy lately (World Cup, editing, photographing, editing, World Cup, Dodgers, editing) so Happy Birthday to Sergio and Christian, congratulations to Denise for graduating UW, and happy birthday (graduation, anniversary, new born child, wedding)  to anyone else I might have missed.

Update: My brother Gabe got a few shots of the night stars.    https://www.flickr.com/photos/49462055@N06/14344849100/

Photo of me impersonating a prospector.

Photo taken while scouting for a good spot for Milky Way

Another view of the same rock