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March 24, Thursday

Bernie sign on Ford Ranger pickup truck in Farmington (Click to enlarge image)

On the way to the Natural Grocers store in Farmington I saw a resident has placed a huge sign for Bernie Sanders on the back of a classic Ford Ranger pickup truck. The paint job of the truck (blue and white) matches the colors on Bernie’s sign, which appears to be well bolted onto the bed of the truck. So far it’s the only campaign sign I’ve seen out here.

Continuing with the moon theme, I went out Wednesday evening for the full moonrise at Fajada Butte. I chose a spot where I could see the moon rise and then would be able to position myself on the road to get the butte. Around the predicted time there was a definite orange glow on the eastern horizon. I took a few photos before the rise of what looked like a fuzzy ball surrounded by a deep blue sky. Then suddenly I saw a bright light, the top half of the moon clearing the mesa in the distance, slowly rising. In the deepening twilight with Fajada looming close by you could almost hear Richard Strauss “Also sprach Zarathusra”. As the moon gained altitude I moved south to try to get the butte in the picture. I timed it so the moon cleared the top of the butte right at one of the well-known rock formations at the top, which made for a nice silhouette.

I’ve wanted to do a series of early/late sun and moonlight on Fajada from our porch. I got up early Thursday for the sunrise and as I’m lining up the shot of the butte I look to my right and see the big full moon setting. The light was perfect as the western sky was still in twilight and the moon was bright. In a few minutes the sun rose, painting the cliffs and the top of Fajada in a brilliant orange light. In the quiet of the early morning it was a serene sight.

Full moon rising behind Fajada Butte formation

Moonset and Fajada Butte on Thursday morning (Click to enlarge image)

Moon, plane and bird.

March 22, Tuesday

The wind started up this morning and is blowing steady now with huge gusts. The air is filled with dust and you can see clouds of it in the distance. I was walking back from the visitor center today and thought I heard a faint mechanical sound. I kept hearing it as I walked closer to the apartments and realized it was the wind blowing through and off the high cliffs that are close to us on the north side. A different sound than the wind going through the ponderosa pines at the Grand Canyon or at Rocky Mountain and an interesting experience.

Monday evening it looked like there would be a good sunset so I walked out in front of our duplex. As they say, sometimes the best picture is behind you and behind me the nearly full moon was rising over a cliff near our duplex right as the sun was setting. A while later the sky was a deep blue in the east and some detail on the rocks was still visible. I shot various compositions and then saw a bird flying through the frame. What luck, I thought, maybe I’ll get one shot of the bird. As I was editing the pictures I saw what I thought was a dust speck on the moon- ugh. I enlarged it and saw it was an airplane, in the same frame as a nicely positioned bird. Complete luck! Nothing to do with skill!

Continuing with the moon theme, I include a shot of the moon setting behind Pueblo Bonito. Click on the picture to see it bigger and you see all the stars visible even with a crescent moon on the horizon. The Milky Way is on the right and about in the middle is the Andromeda Galaxy (fuzzy thing just above the great house).

Moon rising on Monday. (Click to enlarge)

Moon set behind Pueblo Bonito.

March 20, Sunday

The first in line to snap photos. (Click to enlarge images- recommended just for the color of sunlight.)

Today the sun rose marking the vernal equinox at Chaco. Over 80 people woke before dawn and arrived at the entrance to Chaco canyon in 27 degree weather to witness the sunrise. Though everyone could have watched the sunrise from their homes or the camp grounds, the Chaco equinox sunrise can be seen through an alignment of two doors at Casa Rinconada, one of the largest kivas in the area. All the staff were on hand to help with parking and crowd control. Initially they limited the sign ups to 100 and had 40 on a waiting list. But as it turned out everyone that showed up were admitted when the gates were opened an hour early at 6:00 am.

It was still dark out though the eastern sky was brightening as headlights in sets of six slowly made their way up the loop road. All came bundled up against the cold, some wore large blankets. Ranger GB Cornucopia gave a very moving description of the ancient Chacoans and how they existed within this environment and an explanation of the equinox phenomena. Though the actual alignment may or may not have existed when the canyon was populated, GB explained that you had to pay attention to the changing universe around you or you would die. Equinox meant warmer days and time to plant crops.

GB and the other rangers showed people the various angles they could observe and photograph the sun rays and carefully lined up everyone on the west side of the kiva asking for cooperation among the crowd. As the sun rose there was much excitement as visitors jockeyed for position to record for posterity on their smartphones or even cameras (what could the ancient Chacoans thought?). For me it seemed much more fun to record the visitors than the sun rise. The actual alignment lasted over 30 minutes but people fled from the cold as soon as they got their pictures.

Taking the low angle through the brush.

Lining up for the action.

Aiming through the west door.

GB explaining the equinox.

The money shot!

March 19, Saturday

An alert rabbit, peering at a photographer.

Around the apartments there are amazingly cute rabbits hopping around looking for food. I managed to get a few photos one day, this one stopped to take a look at me, decided I wasn’t much of a threat and continued to munch on plants. I see them racing across the road in the canyon late at night and so far have managed to avoid hitting one.

Last Sunday I hiked out to Peñasco Blanco. The sites that contain large structures are referred to as great houses and Peñasco Blanco must have been impressive in its day. As you approach from the floor of the canyon it sits high atop the West Mesa and you climb about 200 feet to reach it. I made a plan to hike the 3.7 miles to the site about two hours before sunset, shoot for a few hours and return to the parking log around 12:30 am. One big worry was the hike back in the dark and climbing down the mesa, but the moon was still up as I walked, faintly lighting the trail. Another was carrying all my equipment plus extra clothes for the cold, water, food and the radio to keep in touch with the rangers. But all worked out fine.

The previous Sunday I did the hike during the day and wrote in my notes, “big, sprawling pueblo”. It is apparently mostly unexcavated so the original house must have been huge. It is the favorite of some of the rangers and I can see why. The sunset that evening was quite spectacular, I posted one of the shots in the last blog. The golden rays of the sun on the brick and the mesa in the distance in this photo is hard to describe. This view is to the east and south, looking back down Chaco canyon towards the other pueblos and the visitor center.

The last rays of the sun on a Peñasco wall and the canyon mesa beyond.

The nearly first quarter moon was covered off and on by clouds, making photographing the Peñasco challenging. Sometimes the clouds would add some drama to the photos. Around 10:30 pm I was done and gathered my things to leave. As I put on my backpack I reached for the waist strap to buckle it and discovered the right strap was missing. I couldn’t figure out where it was. I took off the pack to inspect it and saw it looked as if the strap were torn off at the base where it attaches to the pack. I don’t remember catching it on a plant or the corner of a wall as I walked around. It seemed odd since if an animal had chewed off the strap, it did it without disturbing the whole pack, which was left exactly upright where I had placed it on a flat rock. The mysteries of Chaco.

The moon with a faint halo around it. Despite the advanced phase of the moon, you can still see the constellation Orion to the left and many stars including the Pleiades cluster nearby.

One of the larger north facing walls with a dramatic door, Jupiter is seen rising in the east.

Another small door in an east-west facing wall letting in the moonlight.

March 17, Thursday

Believe it or not, I’ve done a few things other than shooting photos late into the night. I gave my first official “Night Sky Photography” program today at 11:00 am in the visitor center. I did a slide show of the photos including about a dozen taken over the past two weeks. A good crowd of around 45 people came. It looks like this may be a spring break week, there are a lot more people than in the past weeks.

I’m also scheduled for a Night Sky Photography workshop on Sat., March 19 and a talk on Sun., March 20 for the sunrise equinox event here.

There have been two staff gatherings that I’ve been invited to. We went to El Bruno’s restaurant in the small town of Cuba the second night I was here for a good bye dinner for the ranger Phil. This past Tuesday evening Adam, one of the law enforcement rangers, hosted a potluck and grilled steaks, chicken and elk at his place. I took chips and guacamole and two rabbits were eyeing me on the road as I walked to Adam’s apartment.

The scene during The Rug Auction of Crownpoint. (Click on images to enlarge)

The off-park highlight was the Rug Auction of Crownpoint run by the Navajo Weavers Association of Crownpoint, a small town south of Chaco. The auctions are held on the second Friday of each month in the town elementary school gym. Jim, the chief of natural resources at Chaco suggested I go, so we drove down last Friday. Our evening started with Navajo tacos- basically taco filling on a flat “fry bread”, for $5.00 and a drink for $ .50. Half of the gym was filled with vender tables with various art and crafts. I found a nice ceramic box with a turtle etched inside for my younger sister. On big tables all the hand woven Navajo rugs were on display. Chairs were lined up facing a stage and we got a seat up front. A Navajo woman warmed the crowd up with various stories and jokes (she’s also a stand-up comic) in Navajo and English. Two tall cowboy looking fellows did the actual auctioning, they both had the wild quick cadence of auctioneers. Rugs were held up and bidders would hold up a card with a number, which we got before things got started. I bid on three small rugs, got one for Ann and one for my older sister. A pretty good night. Go to crownpointrugauction.com for more info.

A sun halo and Fajada Butte, one of 3 I’ve seen during the day.

The moon, not to be outdone, with its halo and some striking clouds at Una Vida, the second one I’ve seen at night.

Wanted to put at least one sunset in, this incredible one was at Peñasco Blanco.

Welcome back to the blog! For the month of March, I’m the “Dark Sky” Artist-in-Residence at Chaco Culture National Historical Park in northwest New Mexico, an amazing place. Among other things in the area called Chaco Canyon are ancient pueblo great houses that date from 850 AD. The park has protected and preserved many of these structures and has allowed me to access the sites for the night sky photography. Thanks to the help of Tanya Ortega with the National Parks Arts Foundation and Nathan Hatfield, Chief of Interpretation at Chaco, everything came together for the residency.

I arrived March 1 and so far everything has been great. There haven’t been previous postings because of no internet connection. No internet!? How can that be? It seems park volunteers, which I am classified as, need a separate password from the staff. So the kindly administrator needed to work around technical problems and generate new codes.

I’m writing from the kitchen table of the one-story apartment I’m sharing with a ranger. The view out the window is of Fajada Butte, one of the huge sacred sites in Chaco Canyon, a view that’s hard to beat. I had two roommates in this 4-bedroom apartment, but Phil Varela, who I got to know on previous trips here, just left to return home to Minnesota and on to a new job at another park. Steve, one of the rangers and I have the duplex to ourselves for a while, until a seasonal ranger arrives later in the month.

Chaco was designated an International Dark Sky Park by the International Dark Sky Association in 2013 and it certainly lives up to this. I’ve been out almost every night and several pre-dawn sessions to photograph the pueblos and the sky. Some nights have been so clear there really are countless numbers of stars in the sky. Here are a few pictures from these past two weeks, next posting in a day or two.

Early morning view from our front porch of Fajada Butte. (Click on images to enlarge)

The cone of light on the left is the zodiacal light, only seen in very dark places, outshining the Milky Way, at Pueblo del Arroyo.

The big kiva in moonlight at Chetro Ketl.

A 24 hour-old crescent moon setting behind a big wall at Pueblo Bonito.

From the botanical series, at Kin Kletso. Orion, the hunter, dominates the southwestern sky.

The International Space Station passes over Fajada and the Milky Way in this 3 minute exposure.

Actually we’re leaving, got this shot on our way home. (Click on images to enlarge)

We’re back in the concrete canyons of New York, missing our cabin on the rim and the towering ponderosa pines. It was a spectacular three weeks of living and working at the Grand Canyon and we have such great memories. The neighbors: Ellyse, Christian, Jacob, Dave, Brian and all the park employees who live in the complex of cabins. The wind rustling through the ponderosas and quaking the aspen leaves. The animal sightings: Kaibab squirrels, deer, California condors, countless birds. The stars and the sky: a beautiful night sky stretching across the canyon. A big thanks to the North Rim, ranger Robin Tellis and the National Park Service for making the residency possible. Now for the editing and processing of all the pictures. Here’s a couple from the last days, the Venus-Jupiter conjunction and moonlight streaming through clouds and into the canyon. And thanks to all the readers of the blog, hope you found it interesting. Next trip will be mid-July to the Rocky Mountain National Park and their Night Sky Festival. Keep watching this space!

Venus and Jupiter through aspen branches.

Mysterious moonlight into the canyon.

The lone cloud, burned ponderosa trunk.

Here’s a bonus posting, a two-for-one today. (See below for the previous post). Sunday morning we went out to Point Imperial to see the view and hike the short trail. As grand and sweeping the views were from the point, the hike led us through some eerie and surreal landscape. The trail passes through areas burned by the 2000 Outlet Fire and we saw charcoal black ponderosa trunks still soaring to the sky. Fire or erosion carved out sections of the branchless stalks leaving objects that looked like modern art. One in particular looked like a Giacometti sculpture. A lone cloud hovered in the distance, a fluffy white contrast to the stark remains. We came across a dead ponderosa stripped of its bumpy outer bark, the leafless branches reaching out. The hard late morning sun beat down on it. Ann said it was one of the strangest things she had seen. It looked as if lit by stage lighting.

We were on the trail for quite a while and saw no one else. It seemed too bad since lots of visitors go to the point and this hike was very flat and good for families. On the way back we finally passed some people, it turns out it was a couple from San Diego that attended my last artist talk.

We conducted a poll (consisting of Ann and me) and decided three of these looked best in black and white, two look best in color.

Ann relieved she has escaped the grouse. (Click on images to enlarge)

We hiked the Widfross Trail Saturday morning, which winds along the Transept Canyon on the point of land west of the main North Rim development. It’s named for Gunnar Widforss an early 20^th century artist who lived and painted at the Grand Canyon in the 1930’s. He produced a large collection of watercolors prized for their geologic detail. This is also the trail where the blue grouse sometimes acts aggressively towards unsuspecting hikers. As we walked towards the spot I saw it last week, there it was, in the trail far from its nest. So Ann got to experience the deranged grouse.

Along the trail there were numerous objects to photograph and I concentrated on small details and you see how creative and interesting nature can be. I put four of these images together, the fourth not technically a detail but a nice look at the crown of a ponderosa with a partially circular rainbow caused by ice crystals high in the clouds refracting the sunlight.

Ponderosa pine bark.

A dead juniper trunk.

Bright yellow and orange lichen attached to a rock.

Looking up to the crown of a ponderosa pine.

Rush Dudley snapped this of us before my Thursday evening talk. (Click on iimges to enlarge)

It’s been a busy few days, so I haven’t posted anything. Ann arrived Wednesday and it’s been great to have her at the cabin. I drove to Flagstaff to pick her up at the airport and we got back to the North Rim about 7 pm. It’s been heating up in northern Arizona, at Navajo Bridge, the only car crossing over the Colorado River it was 102. Just before the entrance station to the North Rim I came across a heard of buffalo crossing the road. A lucky visitor had driven his motor home into a pull-off and about 100 feet away the buffalo crossed. A few stragglers didn’t want to leave the road and gave me enough time to take some photos.

Bison crossing the entrance road.

I did the third and final artist talk on Thursday night at the Grand Canyon Lodge. It was nice to have Ann there and Rush came along too. There was a good crowd and quite a few questions afterwards. We ate at the Lodge restaurant with a view of the canyon and the sunset.

Earlier in the day Ann and I walked the Transept Trail and she was able to see the remarkable views and the ponderosa trees along the way. At the visitor center we bought post cards and sent them from the North Rim Post Office, a nice way to send messages to people.

Smoky Canyon, Thursday night.

Back to work Thursday night, Rush and I went out to a viewpoint below the lodge. There is a fire north of the rim and a prescribed burn nearby, so there was lots of haze and even smoke in the canyon. So the horizon was a white color and because the moon was so bright, the smoke was seen between the formations. Not so great for the night sky pictures But some interesting effects. I went farther down the Bright Angel Point for other views and ended up doing more plant images. The “smoky canyon” shot is so weird I think I like it.

Sunset at the Lodge.