Palm Springs: Night Photography at Joshua Tree National Park

Capturing the night sky at Joshua Tree National Park

My friend and I stayed on in Joshua Tree National Park after the sun went down, waiting for the sky to turn pitch black before attempting some night photography. When it finally did turn really dark we looked up above us and saw a whole sky filled with stars. 

He said it was the Milky Way and got really excited.

We waited for the sky to get pitch dark

We headed to the two other points the park ranger had told us about, White Tank and Jumbo Rocks, which we did in about 20 minutes and found the two places, but 1) there were lots of people camping in these two places during the Thanksgiving long weekend 2) they had fires going to cook and keep themselves warm.

That meant there would be too much manmade light from people's flashlights and the campfires, not to mention noise (a dog was barking at us). The smell of the smoke from the fires was unbearable too. So my friend decided we should go back to where we were earlier -- Cholla Cactus Garden.

By the time we got there before 7pm, hardly anyone was around. We walked back to the area we were at earlier and set up the tripod and started to experiment, and with 15-second exposures he was able to take pictures of the night sky.

A few experiments with lighting and timing

It was amazing to see him able to take pictures of the stars, though there were lots of airplanes up there too,  with their flashing lights. In his pictures they look like red or white lines due to the long exposure.

We did many experiments, using our mobile phone lights at different brightness and length of time until we finally settled on a formula. One time he used my mobile phone shining my home screen of a pink flower, which resulted in the cactus in the foreground looking reddish-pink. We finally settled on using a white screen for a quick second.

While we were taking pictures there was a group of people wearing headlights and walking around where we were... strange of them to do that while it was so dark -- and surrounded by cacti! Not exactly the safest thing to do late at night. 

But they finally got out of our way and left us alone.

A marvellous sight to see the Milky Way

After a slew of pictures, my friend was very satisfied with what he was able to achieve on his first attempt and I was thrilled to hang out and see the Milky Way shining above us, uninterrupted by any kind of light pollution. It was stunning, amazing and profound to witness it.