High ISO in the planetarium

We hold an annual departmental graduation ceremony for our majors and Ph.D. students in Fiske planetarium. It’s a great venue, but a challenge for photography because even when the house lights are on, they’re not very bright. At all! Shooting with the 70-200mm f/4 wide open I was pushed to ISO 12,800 on the 5D3. Pretty crazy if you still have any memory of film days, but plenty usable with only a moderate amount of noise reduction in Lightroom (luminance = 30). Congrats to the graduating students!

Celebration a degree

Celebrating an astronomy degree with a look to the heavens

Newly minted Ph.D.

Newly minted Ph.D.

Salmon glacier

The Salmon glacier, in British Columbia (though you have to drive a dirt road from Hyder, Alaska, to get there!). A strong contender, in my opinion, for the title of best “drive-up” viewpoint in North America.

Salmon glacier

Salmon glacier, Stewart, British Columbia

California condors at Zion

Last week I got an email from a Brazilian conservation group asking for permission to use one of my images as part of the graphic design for a book cover (in Portuguese only!). Of course this was OK, since I explicitly waive the copyright of the images I post to Wikipedia and the web, but still I had to sign a copyright form

Three amazing Colorado photography locations

In my first few years living in Colorado I made several brief hiking and photography trips exploring the corners of my new home. This was back in the days of film (typically Provia 100), and I have a modest collection of slides only some fraction of which were ever scanned. There are plenty of locations I really ought to return to for longer visits: here are three of the best.

Electric Pass, Maroon Bells-Snowmass wilderness

Electric Pass, Maroon Bells-Snowmass wilderness

It’s a short but steep hike to Electric Pass, in the Maroon Bells wilderness just outside Aspen. The trail here reaches higher than any other in the state not headed for a mountain peak. Although not a national park, the Maroon Bells are quite possibly the most impressive part of the Rockies in Colorado. Get an early start if you attempt this hike, as it’s not named “Electric Pass” without good reason.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

The Black Canyon is a national park, but it’s far enough away from any tourist route as to be sparsely visited. The South Rim is best for photography, the North Rim (to which there’s no paved road) better for hiking and extremely quiet.

Chasm Lake, sunrise, Rocky Mountain National Park

Chasm Lake, sunrise, Rocky Mountain National Park

Chasm Lake, with the Diamond Face of Longs Peak as a backdrop, is spectacular at any time of the day (or year, though an ice axe and crampons are recommended to get there safely in winter). The classic sight though is sunrise, which on a clear day turns the Diamond Face a glorious shade of orange (on a not-so-clear day, which I’ve also experienced, there’s nothing to see!). Get a very early start and join those attempting to summit Longs for the 2-3 hour pre-dawn hike to the lake.

Utah’s best desert hikes

Virgin River, Zion Narrows

Heading upstream near the start of the Narrows, Zion National Park

The deserts of the American southwest, and southern Utah in particular, are probably my favorite hiking area. It’s just a day’s drive, or less, from my home in Boulder, Colorado, and I’ve lost count of the number of hiking trips I’ve made there. Although I’ve only seen a fraction of this vast region I reckon I’ve seen enough to offer some recommendations to my top day hikes. In that spirit, this post includes some (newly reprocessed!) photos, videos, and short descriptions of the hikes I’ve enjoyed most in the parks and wilderness areas of southern Utah.

Click on any of the photos for large versions

Overview of Utah’s desert hiking areas

Moab, Arches and Canyonlands National Parksbring a bike

Grizzly Lake hike, Tombstone Territorial Park

The hike to Grizzly Lake in the Yukon’s Tombstone mountains is, to say the least, a bit out of the way. The trailhead is at the 58.5km mark (about 36 miles) along the Dempster Highway, an unpaved road notorious for cracking windshields, whose start is some 300 miles north of Whitehorse. If you do find yourself in the wilds of the Yukon, however, the Grizzly Lake hike (and its extensions to Divide Lake and Talus Lake) makes for an outstanding and surprisingly moderate short backpack through incredible scenery. The photos and brief description below are based on a two day trip my brother and I took in summer 2010, camping for one night at Grizzly Lake.

Approaching Grizzly Lake in the Tombstones

Approaching Grizzly Lake in the Tombstones

The 11.5km (7 mile) long trail to Grizzly Lake starts with a climb through the forest to Grizzly Ridge and a viewpoint down the valley toward Mount Monolith. It’s pretty much the only maintained trail in Tombstone Territorial Park, and although labeled as “very difficult” in the park literature it’s a very clear route whose only challenge comes from a decent amount of climbing

Valparaiso, Chile

I’ll be headed back to Santiago in May, though for a work trip that won’t afford much time for photography. This image is from Valparaiso a few years back.

Industrial beach, Valparaiso

Industrial beach, Valparaiso

Boulder and the Rockies

Boulder and the Rockies, Lost Gulch Overlook

Boulder and the Rockies, Lost Gulch Overlook

Made a detour up Flagstaff mountain en route to the office this evening, stopping as usual at the Lost Gulch Overlook. It’s a popular spot, and a few sunset watchers were still around. It was also windy (though not cold) so I shot a quick panorama before calling it quits. I’m sure there’s a great image to be had from this spot, though it needs a day with low cloud or fog in Boulder Canyon…

Icelandic memories

The onset of a particularly busy spell at work means that there are unlikely to be many firings of the shutter or new images this month! It’s that time of year, however, when thoughts turn to possible summer destinations. A return to Iceland is a mighty tempting prospect…

Looking over the plains, near Geysir

Looking over the plains, near Geysir

Gulfoss, Iceland

Gulfoss, Iceland

Midnight sunset, Iceland

Midnight sunset, Iceland

Pre-dawn planets

For the next week or so you can catch five planets: Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter, together in the sky before dawn. They’re not very close together, but today I tried a time lapse of Venus and Mercury rising before a very slender crescent Moon in the pre-dawn sky. Not perfect framing and bit too much light spill from Denver, but you do get to see them all (Venus is the brightest object, then Mercury rises along the same track toward the right of the frame)…