Mono Lake and the Milky Way!

So.  I'm exhausted.  

Back to work and (mostly) happy about it, but it's emotionally exhausting dealing with Ms. Terminator (tm: Jackie).  But I signed up to go to Mono Lake with one of my Meet-up groups to shoot the Milky Way and I didn't allow myself to talk myself out of it!  

So, without further ado, here are my offerings.  

Oh, but first.  There are these amazing looking abandoned cabins off of 395 that I always want to stop at but never have.  And OH!  

Did I mention that we had our first snowfall already??  In mid-September?  And there was quite a bit still on the ground and in the trees as I went over Monitor Pass!  So exciting!  So then I HAD to stop at the cabins because the mountains in the background were covered with snow and it looked amazing!

I really hope this means we're going to have another wet winter!

So then I got to the parking lot at the South Tufa area of Mono Lake and met up with a new friend.  We were both late and so it was totally meant to be!  We ended up shooting together most of the night and having a blast. 

It was about 6:30 when we arrived and 7:00ish by the time we got to the beach and set up.  We met up with our group leader who gave us some basic info on what shutter/ISO/Aperture we needed and he helped me get my tripod into portrait mode, which I didn't even know it could do!  Yay!

Then we tried to capture some of the tufa with the golden glow from the sunset on them.  Mine were mostly blurry (damn my old, bad eyes!) but I still like this photo.  Just don't look at it too close. 

It's called the Shipwreck (or so I was told) and it was really windy (and freezing), so I like the motion on the water. 

And then, as the sky darkened into a deep purple and the new moon came out, I tried to capture those.

Just in case ya didn't know, these pillars are called Tufa and they were formed many, many moons ago when all of this was under water.  Mono Lake used to be a huge inland sea.  And beneath the lake, underground springs would push calcium-laden water through the lake bed.  When that water met the salty water of the lake, the calcium and carbonate salts formed the limestone towers.

The lake has been drained by drought and by man (mostly Southern California men I think) and now the Tufa Towers are visible around the lake.  If you watch closely at the waters edge, you can see bubbles where new tufa are being formed even now.  Baby tufa!

Anyway, another celestial sight to behold was the Big Dipper sprawled over the North Western horizon.

And then it was time to try to get the Milky Way.  There were clouds out just above the mountains and blocking parts of the galaxy center (or so I was told) but there were so many stars it was simply amazing!

Oh, I should probably say that I have NO idea how to edit the Milky Way to get the fabulous colors and lights that most other photographers do.  I know that most use Lightroom, which I don't have.  I don't even have "real" Photoshop!  So these efforts in my ancient Photoshop Elements 11 is the best I can do.  :-)

This first one was actually a happy accident when Candice turned on her flashlight just as I opened my shutter (I got yelled at for this same thing later.  Some people are very rude.)  It illuminated the tufa naturally and, I think, looks pretty cool!

I had brought some "props", most of which I ended up not using because there were too many people around and I was afraid of getting yelled at.  Maybe next summer I can do some more of my whimsical ideas.  

But I did break out a few glowsticks and place them on the back side of the tufa.  Cool Cool Cool!

These first photos I edited pretty dark and I think I actually took out some of the Milky Way because it was more visible to the naked eye.  But I hate my photos to look grainy!  

This one I adjusted the midtones lighter and you can definitely see more of the Milky Way.  And a plane! Or shooting star!  I don't know which and don't really care because it looks cool.  lol

And another one!  On this one the top and a little of the bottom of the tufa are red and that's not from a glowstick.  I think someone turned on a red flashlight.  You're supposed to use a red flashlight so it doesn't show up in people's photos (or so I was told) but obviously it does.  But again, cool!  It looked like a Superman tufa.

This is the same photo but with my original, darker edit.  There were pink and blue glowsticks (and the red flashlight). 

Now with this next one I went balls to the walls and lightened the hell out of the midtones! You can see all the freaking stars in the damn universe!  Sorry.  I'm really, really tired.

This is the opposite end of the galaxy with a silhouette of the Shipwreck.  So many stars!

And for my last photo of the night (pun intended! Ha!), we have a black and white (mostly) of the Northern shore of Mono with tufa in silhouette.  The streaks of light on the left are cars driving down 395 where it's just above the shore).  And two planes.  Because it can't be said enough...Cool!

I heard the trailing garments of the Night

sweep through her marble halls!

I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light

from the celestial walls!

I felt her presence by its spell of might

stoop o'er me from above;

the calm, majestic presence of the Night,

as of the one I love. 

Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!

Descend with broad-winged flight,

the welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,

the best beloved Night!

~~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

xoxo

Nikon D3300

Super Blood Moon - Eclipse September 27, 2015 Sacramento California

I was so excited to hear about the Super Blood Moon - the fairly rare occurrence of a Super Moon eclipse.  

A Super Moon is a moon that is a full moon at it's perigee, or closest point to Earth in it's slightly oblong orbit.  It makes it look super large, especially at moonrise when it's close to the horizon.  And, become of the remnants of light that comes around the earth from the sun, the moon is tinged red when it is eclipsed.  It's a photographer's dream. 

We decided to go out to the River Road (where I attempted my last shots of a Super Moon...they all turned out terrible BTW); I had refreshed my memory on night shooting on my camera but it's always something that is fraught with stress because I tend to forget and get frustrated.  haha  I was determined that this was going to work.  

In a scene straight out of The Birds, as soon as we parked on the levee, a huge flock of crows flew over and started circling us, cawing loudly.  They eventually settled down into the trees.

  

It was a gorgeous day, but unfortunately, there was a thick cloud layer just along the Eastern horizon.  The moon in Sacramento was going to rise almost fully eclipsed, so having part of it being obscured by the clouds was a disappointment.  

In addition to the crows, we were treated to the loud honking of Canadian Geese that flew overhead in their customary V formation. 

However, the clouds in the sunset were stunning.  So I contented myself with capturing some of the purple and orange beauty.

I also dabbled with long exposure when I saw a few planes in the sky.  My result??

Of course when I was facing West trying to catch some weird picture, one of the older ladies near us asked "Is that it?"  I turned and it was about halfway out of the clouds, looking red and malevolently beautiful.

As expected, at this point it was almost fully-eclipsed. But that's okay; I was so happy I could get a couple of pictures with the dark trees in them!

You can just see the slight, orangey looking rim on the right bottom.  That was the only part not covered by the Earth's shadow. 

So at this point, we decided to head home while the full eclipse was happening.  I had neglected to think about how standing by a river on a warm, humid night would make us choice mosquito dinner.

By the time we got home about 25 minutes later, the moon was starting to come out of the eclipse.  Now you can see the white rim on the opposite side...lower left.

Little bit more...

And now halfway there!  Note:  I took this through tree branches thinking it would make a "cool" effect.   

And now, because so much of the extremely bright moon was visible, I had to switch settings and go to a higher aperture and shorter shutter speed in order to get some detail in the moon.  Consequently, most of the red effect from the shadow is taken away.  To the naked eye, it still looked tinged with red but not nearly as much. 

We're almost there!

As the red from the shadow was receding, I decided to try some different white balance settings.  I think, especially beside the red photos, it looks over compensated and almost blue.  But still gorgeous!

This one I darkened slightly in order to bring out all the detail in the moon. So amazing. 

And here's the final finished product.  A gorgeous, bright-white Super Moon!

All photos taken by ME! with my Nikon D3000, Nikon ED Nikkor 70-300 lens.  I absolutely used a tripod and also used the timer button to lessen vibration since I do not have a remote.  Actually I do but it doesn't work.  Thanks camera store. 

The early photos with full/mostly full eclipse were taken with ISO 200, Shutter speeds up to 8 seconds, and aperture set at f5.6 (the lowest my lens will go).  After half of the bright moon was exposed, I switched to 1/125 Shutter speed, aperture between f8-f11 (same ISO).

Next I will tackle star trails!  Hope you enjoy my photos and story as much as I did creating them. 

xoxo