Rob_Eakins

GALACTIC.

This past weekend my wife and I spent several days in Palm Springs - LA. Having grown up on a state park I have an affinity for nature and the outdoors and tak...
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This past weekend my wife and I spent several days in Palm Springs - LA. Having grown up on a state park I have an affinity for nature and the outdoors and take any opportunity I get to visit state-national parks and support the organizations that help preserve the natural beauty that our country has to offer. Since we were heading to the desert we spent an entire day at Joshua Tree hiking and exploring.

I've never attempted to photograph the Milky Way so when we planned this trip I started doing research to get more well versed in how to achieve a solid photo of the Milky Way. I used the Photopills app on my phone to try to do as much pre-planning before the trip, and during the day, as possible. As the sun set, my wife and I were at the Lone Juniper and Balanced Rock in the Jumbo Rocks campground. Once the sun was completely down, I set up one of the shots that I had planned and fired away. To my surprise the shots were turning out, which was really exciting. I shot there for about an hour, with my wife hiking back and forth between where I was set up and the car to try to keep warm. After I got several shots that I liked there the last stop was to find a good Joshua Tree for a silhouette shot. We pulled over on our way out of the park to set up this shot. I was a little uneasy because as soon as I got off the road and started walking over to this tree I spotted some animal tracks and some very fresh....poop. I set up quickly and started shooting, constantly scanning the area with my flashlight to make sure no wildlife was trying to sneak up on me. I ended up getting this shot that I'm pretty pleased with, and once we were in the car headed out we spotted a coyote about 100 yards from where I had been shooting.
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