Day 35, Sunny Flats Forest Service Campground, Portal, AZ, Day 4

The Milky Way & Trailer

A bit warmer overnight at 32°F, but it took awhile to warm up due to morning cloud cover. By 1:00, clear blue skies & 70°F, at least under my sun drenched propane cover - I really need to find a better permanent location for the outside temperature sender. Don sets his up in the shade each stop. If I tried that I'd leave it behind within a week!. With the clear sky, I suspect it will be a cold night.

I took a few night photos with my latest lens, a Nikkor 6 - 15mm zoom fisheye. An unusual lens. At 6mm, it is a true full frame 180° fisheye. As you zoom it towards 15mm, it becomes a wide angle lens. I wanted it to be able to take full sky photos, as well as to have a fisheye. More distortion than a standard wide angle lens, but a useful addition to my collection. There were at least two campsites with campfires, so you can see them in the images.

During the afternoon, I wandered around the campground taking some photos with the lens at different focal lengths. All of the above images were taken with the fisheye.  See the additional images at today's LakeshoreImages page.

The campground emptied out to just me & my neighbor by 12:00. One Class A arrived during the afternoon. Unfortunately, the Class A is parked in a site that directly faces the direction in which I want to take photos. If he keeps his lights off, it may work, but I was hoping for empty sites.

I spent the afternoon reading, Finishing John Grisham's The Brethren, and starting Christopher Stasheff's The Outbound Wizard, a SiFi by an author I haven't read.

A few tent campers came in during the day, along with a couple in a clamshell trailer.

Dinner was a Barber Chicken Cordon Bleu & snap peas.

I went out after dinner for a few more star photos. Much clearer. The first image is shooting straight up with the fisheye at 6mm & 180°; the rest are at longer focal lengths.


Until Later -














Just a quick update - I arrived at Gilbert Ray Campground in Tucson, and posted the last couple of day's journals. I'll post today's a little later.

Until Next Time -