Chiricahua National Monument

April 30, 2014

Goodbye Winter Sky – 2014 Edition

After a brutal winter for most of us in the northern hemisphere, we’re glad to see the last of the winter sky.

This was the scene on Tuesday night, April 29 as the last of the winter sky descended into the evening twilight.

Here, Orion (left of centre) sets into the western sky, next to the gossamer glow of the zodiacal light (right of centre). The stars of Taurus sit amid the zodiacal light, with the Pleiades just about to set behind the ridge. Sirius, the sky’s brightest star, shines at far left.

The zodiacal light is the glow of sunlight reflecting off cometary dust particles in the inner solar system. It is a glow from interplanetary space, not from our atmosphere. Spring is the best time to see it in the evening sky, no matter your hemisphere. It also helps to be in the desert of the U.S. Southwest!

I took this parting shot of the winter sky from a favourite observing haunt from years’ past, Massai Point, at 6800 feet altitude in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona. The sky was perfectly clear and the night warm and windless. I’m back in Arizona and New Mexico for a few days, checking out accommodations for a long-term stay next winter, so I won’t have to endure the snow and cold that plagued us last winter. Good bye winter sky! Good bye winter!

December 16, 2013

Venus in the Moonlight

Venus blazes brightly in the moonlit sky in the Chiricahua Mountains of Arizona.

This was the view last night, from Massai Point at the summit of the Chiricahua Mountains, looking southwest toward Venus in the blue moonlit sky. A bright waxing gibbous Moon provided the illumination, turning night into day in these long exposures.

I started my trek around Arizona and New Mexico here, at Chiricahua National Monument two weeks ago, on December 3, when I took some sunset shots.

I end my trip by returning to the Chiricahuas, but now with a nearly Full Moon in the sky.

I saw this scene two weeks ago but didn’t shoot it then. So I returned to capture Venus at the end of a moonlit road, shining above the volcanic rock formations that are the distinctive feature of the National Monument.

Now, it’s home to Alberta and the snow and cold.

December 15, 2013

Moon over the Chiricahuas

The waxing gibbous Moon rises over the Chiricahua Mountains of southeast Arizona.

This was the stunning scene on Sunday night, December 15, as I drove out to Chiricahua National Monument south of Willcox, Arizona for some moonlight photography. I stopped on Highway 186 to catch the colourful twilight in the east with the Moon rising over the desert mountains.

This image, taken a few minutes later, shows a darker sky but with more prominent crepuscular rays – shadows cast by distant clouds to the west where the Sun set. A photogenically placed windmill adds to the scene.

I love the contrast of Earth tones and twilight tints – a very desert-like palette.

December 3, 2013December 4, 2013

Twilight in the Chiricahuas

The colours of twilight illuminate the eroded rock formations of Chiricahua National Monument in southeast Arizona.

This was the scene tonight, Tuesday, December 3, as night fell over the Chiricahua Mountains in Arizona. The landscape below is a maze of eroded towers of ancient volcanic ash. The sky above is one of the finest on the continent for stargazing.

I spent a week or so here back in May 1995, stargazing with friends from the parking lot at Massai Point at the summit of the Chiricahuas. Tonight was my first visit back to that parking lot in 18 years. The evening was just as windy as I remember it in 1995. And as it was back then, Venus was in the western sky tonight.

This was sunset a few minutes earlier when the clouds were lit red by the setting Sun. I used a 24mm lens for this shot but a 14mm lens for the main image above.

Both shots are 7- to 8-frame “high dynamic range” composites that stack images taken in quick succession over a range of exposures from 2 stops under to 2 stops overexposed. The stack of images, when merged with HDR software, captures what one exposure cannot, due to the huge contrast between the bright sky and the dark foreground at twilight. I used Photomatix Pro software to do the merging and tonal balancing. Such amazing digital tools were unheard of and undreamed of in 1995!