Nerd out time! The next couple of weeks are going to be a bit more technical than normal, so if you’re just here for the pretty pictures – which I’m guessing is most of you? – then you can skip this read. OR, follow along and learn something new. 🙂
If you’ve been paying attention since last fall, you will recall that I noticed you can photograph portions of the Gum Nebula here where I live in the Northern Hemisphere, and it has been a bit of a pursuit of mine to get nice pictures of it since. Perhaps my most detailed image of it was posted back in April. Well, as I was planning my trip to California this year, I noticed that part of the Gum Nebula would still be visible just after sunset while I was there, so I had to try it. My first (and only, as it turns out) opportunity to shoot it was while I was at the Junk Yard, so I framed up this late 40’s truck cab with it, just to see what I could do.
The sky out in Joshua Tree is way better than here in East Tennessee, but it’s not perfect, unfortunately, due to the nearby cities / towns whose light pollution blots out parts of the sky. In the case of the setting Gum Nebula, you’re pointing your camera right at the Coachella Valley (Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Indio, etc). As this object was only in the sky for about 2 hours after night time officially started, and the last hour of that gets ruined by the light pollution, I had to settle for a less than optimal shooting scenario – but it is what it is. This was the chance I got! All that to say, I wish I had had more time with it to improve the overall quality and detail of the image, but it left me wanting to come back in a more optimal time of year to try again! Or go shoot in the Southern Hemisphere again, where the view of the Gum Nebula is completely unobstructed. Maybe one day!
More next week!
–Dan Thompson