What’s Gotta Stay

It’s not often I get the chance to get out camping two weekends in a row, and even less likely I will get time to hang out with my camera late at night. This last weekend though I was able to spend three nights out with my family at Palisades Campground, just south of Manti, Utah. The very first night I was so enamored by the amazing, clear view of the sky that I spent hours out with my camera capturing various views.

We had a couple of neighbors that also joined us at the same campground. One family brought their nearly two year old granddaughter with them. We arrived late, so it was already dark, and when she stepped out of the car, she looked up and simply exclaimed, “Wowwww!” My feelings exactly.

Last week was a lot of fun with photographer friends, but the location we were at didn’t provide the wide, unobstructed view like Palisades had to offer. I shot every angle, with plenty of “throwaways” in the bunch, but several I was happy with. Here are a few of the keepers.

This is the view looking over the reservoir with Manti City providing the “rim light” glow behind the mountains.

I was fond of this shot how the Milky Way appears like fire coming off of the silhouetted tree.

On another evening, this was slightly earlier catching Twilight looking over the water. The reservoir levels were much lower than we have experienced in years previous because we were later in the season. The reservoir provides irrigation water for the nearby farms.

Finally one last view of the sky. This was actually one of the first I took that evening we arrived. You can barely see it, but about a third of the way down and in the middle, there is a shooting star. Yes Suzanne, I finally got a shooting star

Tags: night, stars