Over the last several years, I’ve tried to do tighter night sky images from time to time because I really love how crazy the details are. Sometimes I will compose around a particular object in the night sky, but typically I compose around my foreground objects, and whatever happens to be in the sky is what is in the sky. For this week’s Picture of the Week, the latter was the case. I was wandering around this area of large rocks with my buddy Mark, and I spotted this giant bolder that I just absolutely loved. In the daylight when the rock was more evenly lit it appeared to be very round, but after dark when I hit it with lights its features became more pronounced and it was a lot of fun to mess with.
In doing my homework to see what part of the sky would rise behind it, I realized it was part of the “great rift” area of the Milky Way, which in itself was exciting to me as well. This portion of the sky either gets neglected altogether in favor of it’s more colorful neighbors left and right, or it’s just one part of a much larger sky. Doing this scene gave me the opportunity to really focus on it (no pun intended) and enjoy its beauty.
This is all an allegory isn’t it? When we shine a light on things, we see its features – and sometimes defects. When we really focus on something that is neglected, we can see its beauty. The name of this place was changed in 2022 when the park service began actively removing names within the parks that were derogatory (often to Native peoples) or otherwise memorialized people who culture no longer looks upon favorably, as was the case in the Smokies with Kuwohi. As in the Smokies, Joshua Tree National Park chose to embrace the tribal name: Paac Kü̱vü̱hü̱’k (pronounced paach kurv-er-hurk), which is a Serrano phrase that means watering hole. The remains of the man-made watering hole are just to the left of this boulder in the shadows.
More next week!
–Dan Thompson