A - San Francisco, CA
B - Zzyxz Rd., CA
C - Black Rock Road, AZ
D - St. George, UT
E - Coral Pink San Dunes, UT
F - Death Valley, CA
G - Mahogonay Flats, CA
H - Panoche Pass, CA
I - San Francisco, CA
Now February of 2013, all business concerning our recent project, Dark Sky Tour, has been finalized and wrapped up. Our trip took us on a wild chase from San Francisco to St. George, UT, Death Valley, and a lot of places in between. We had some tough breaks with weather in general, but struck gold on Mahogany Peak in Death Valley, as well as the small border road between Arizona and Nevada called Black Rock Road. The skies we saw at Mahogany Peak in Death Valley (8200 ft. elevation) were thus far unmatched in clarity and darkness, and our telescope was tracking quite well. We also shot a few time lapse videos during the trip and a lot of nice southwestern nighttime landscapes.
As proof of the trip we produced the Dark Sky Tour book, a collection of 38 of the greatest pictures from the Dark Sky Tour trip. A few copies are being kept for sale at Amazon
We got back to SF yesterday, and have been catching up on sleep ever since. We got some great shots in Death Valley, but because the high temps were causing a lot of noise in our images while in the valley, we opted to skip Amboy Crater out of fear of similar conditions. Instead, we hit a place called Panoche Pass for the last night. Panoche is about 2-1/2 hours south of SF on I-5, and pretty much has the darkest skies we have seen in and around central California. The Mahogany Flats campground, which sits at 8200 ft. overlooking Death Valley, was by far the best sky conditions we saw. This image of the Milky Way was shot there.
As we begin to process the images, we will keep you all updated of the progress. We hope to have the books designed within the next couple weeks. For those of you who get to choose your prints, we will be contacting you via Kickstarter message within the next week. More info is soon to come.
We had a great time and are sure the book is going to be good! Thanks again!
Well, we haven't run into the best conditions. For the last few nights, it has started out cloudy - only to clear up to an amazing sky, just long enough for us to align the telescope - and then become cloudy again as we start to image. We have still managed to pull some good images out of what we've had to work with, but we are hoping for better conditions in Death Valley! We are now leaving Utah heading in that direction. Cell phone service will be very limited from here on out, so updates will be less frequent. The image below is Coral Pink Sand Dunes under a passing thunderstorm.
We just passed through Zion, and are about 20 miles away from Coral Pink. This is the last call for phone reception for the night... The sky is partly cloudy and our fingers are crossed!
We are back on the Arizona Strip at the same place as last night. Tonight we have achieved a very good alignment, however, the clear sky has been robbed by thin wispy clouds... so we are passing the time hunting for scorpions with a UV flashlight, and listening to music. Hopefully these clouds will eventually pass, and we can take advantage of this good alignment! We got some good pictures through the telescope last night, and tomorrow we will head east to Coral Pink Sand Dunes - a Utah State Park.
The first leg of the drive went well, and now we are in the thick of the desert at Zzyzx Road. Tonight we will be imaging in St. George, Utah.
And we're off! Next stop, Zzyzx Rd. for breakfast! 480 miles to go.
