The "Milky Way" test of a boondocking site
I know there are many definitions of boondocking, and that is a good thing. But here is one possible test -- if you are not in a campground and you can see the Milky Way under clear skies, you are re...
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We spent September boondocking and dry camping in Utah, Idaho, Nevada, and the Eastern Sierra. If you like dark skies, the Basin and Range country is really great.
I'm a little disappointed with some of these photos -- I have a new-to-me (used) Canon EOS, and the manual focus for night photography is a hassle. There is no "infinity" setting -- I have to find a bright star and focus on it. Not so easy. So as you will see, the focus on some of these pictures is almost, but not quite, exactly right. Fortunately, I'm not a professional, so it's ok that the pictures are imperfect. All of these shots were at an ISO of 3200 for 30 seconds, and then the raw files were edited with Lightroom 5.
This is in the Uintas of Utah -- there was a sliver of moon illuminating the mountains (Reid's Peak and Bald Mtn.), and this is the north end of the Milky
Way, not the south end (the center of the galaxy):
Click For Full-Size Image.
This is in Idaho, north of Ketchum, in the Boulder Mountains. (No Milky Way in this shot.) I'm not sure it is visible, but there is a faint meteor track over us -- I did not even know it was there until we got home and looked at the photos on the computer:
Click For Full-Size Image.
This is also in Idaho, south of Stanley, on the Salmon River. It was taken in the early evening -- we could see the Milky Way, even though there was still a little color in the sky left over from the sunset:
Click For Full-Size Image.
This is in Great Basin National Park in Nevada, probably the darkest sky I have ever seen. We were up on Wheeler Peak Road at the Mather Overlook at 9000 feet, not actually at our campsite, so this is cheating a little. If you look carefully, you might be able to see that the starlight is so bright that it is reflecting faintly off the dusting of snow covering the north slope of the mountains:
Click For Full-Size Image.
And finally, this is from the Mammoth Scenic Loop area, north of Mammoth. We used an old-school incandescent flashlight to very briefly "paint" the aspens. I have found that this works better than an LED flashlight, which usually has a blue cast:
Click For Full-Size Image.
I'm a little disappointed with some of these photos -- I have a new-to-me (used) Canon EOS, and the manual focus for night photography is a hassle. There is no "infinity" setting -- I have to find a bright star and focus on it. Not so easy. So as you will see, the focus on some of these pictures is almost, but not quite, exactly right. Fortunately, I'm not a professional, so it's ok that the pictures are imperfect. All of these shots were at an ISO of 3200 for 30 seconds, and then the raw files were edited with Lightroom 5.
This is in the Uintas of Utah -- there was a sliver of moon illuminating the mountains (Reid's Peak and Bald Mtn.), and this is the north end of the Milky
Way, not the south end (the center of the galaxy):
This is in Idaho, north of Ketchum, in the Boulder Mountains. (No Milky Way in this shot.) I'm not sure it is visible, but there is a faint meteor track over us -- I did not even know it was there until we got home and looked at the photos on the computer:
This is also in Idaho, south of Stanley, on the Salmon River. It was taken in the early evening -- we could see the Milky Way, even though there was still a little color in the sky left over from the sunset:
This is in Great Basin National Park in Nevada, probably the darkest sky I have ever seen. We were up on Wheeler Peak Road at the Mather Overlook at 9000 feet, not actually at our campsite, so this is cheating a little. If you look carefully, you might be able to see that the starlight is so bright that it is reflecting faintly off the dusting of snow covering the north slope of the mountains:
And finally, this is from the Mammoth Scenic Loop area, north of Mammoth. We used an old-school incandescent flashlight to very briefly "paint" the aspens. I have found that this works better than an LED flashlight, which usually has a blue cast:
