Zion Night Skies

We passed through Zion National Park on Friday evening after sunset - much later than anticipated. We left in plenty of time, but dilly dallied around in several places along the way and turned a 3-1/2 hour drive into about a 12-hour one. To be fair, we avoided the Interstate and took back roads, stopping at several small towns and locating ancestor's graves and just generally enjoying not having a deadline or set timeframe.

As we were passing through the park in the dark, I decided to check Sky Guide and sure enough, the Milky Way is high in the sky and the moon doesn't rise until very late. A perfect setup for some good night skies images. We are both beat, however, so we decided to sleep in the next morning and have our little photography experience the next night. The downside of that is the show we are here to see at Tuacahn won't get out until around 11:30 pm on Saturday, on the other side of St. George.

By 1:30 am we were set up at the "Bonsai Tree" waiting for some vehicles to provide a little light painting for us. Never happened, so we did a little painting ourselves and made some dark images as well.

"Bonsai Tree," Zion National Park, Kane County, Utah, USA, June 18, 2017, Nikon D90, Tamron SP 10-24mm f3.5-4.5 Di II LD Aspherical IF B001N at 10mm, Manual Exposure Mode, f/3.5 for 30 seconds, ISO 3200, processed in Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC.

The Watchman was well lit by the lights of Springdale as usual. I wanted to get a little reflection off the Virgin River, but that didn't turn out so well. Not enough reflected light from the sky and light painting catches more than the river, so. . . . I do have some ideas to try next time.

The Watchman, Zion National Park, Washington County, Utah, USA, June 18, 2017, Nikon D90, Tamron SP 10-24mm f3.5-4.5 Di II LD Aspherical IF B001N at 10mm, Manual Exposure Mode, f/3.5 for 30 seconds, ISO 3200, processed in Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC.

The Milky Way was too far up in the sky by 2:30 am to get the Meeting Hall and the Milky Way in a single image from the West side.  As I was experimenting, however, with various angles and set-ups, the moon began to rise in the East. That created the perfect light painting scenario for an image from the East of the Hall rather than the West.  This is one of my favorite images of the night!

Grafton, Washington County, Utah, USA, June 18, 2017, Nikon D90, Tamron SP 10-24mm f3.5-4.5 Di II LD Aspherical IF B001N at 10mm, Manual Exposure Mode, f/3.5 for 30 seconds, ISO 3200, processed in Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC.

As we were leaving to head back to St. George about 3:30 am, I wanted to stop and make a few images of the Rockville Bridge with the Milky Way behind and above and the tiniest amount of light painting from the moon.  Also one of my favorites.

Rockville Bridge, Rockville, Washington County, Utah, USA, June 18, 2017, Nikon D90, Tamron SP 10-24mm f3.5-4.5 Di II LD Aspherical IF B001N at 10mm, Manual Exposure Mode, f/3.5 for 30 seconds, ISO 3200, processed in Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC.