Gods Spit

I drove out into the night at midnight and traveled to the middle of the Mohave desert, near Cima, CA to take a couple of hours of star shots.Most of the trip was uneventful except for a couple of things. First, I drove out into the darkness much earlier than I’ve ever gone before. I didn’t notice any animals for quite a while but eventually a baby jack rabbit popped out in front of my car, so I slowed down to miss him. Then, he kept hopping along in front of my car following my headlights for about five to ten minutes when he finally hopped off the road. Quite amusing but at least he lived! In the summer they’re many of them on the prowl and some become roadkill!This trip I drove around checking out three different places and finally decided on a new area. It had many Joshua trees and was an off-road area that normally requires 4-wheel drive, but I went anyway. I got to a certain point where I decided I either needed to turn around or back up. At first, I thought there were a couple of spots where I could turn around however when I was on the sides of the road it felt like the tires would get stuck since the soil was very loose. So, I finally decided to back up for about a mile in the dark to get off of that road. It was fairly easy but tedious using the rear viewer screen on my Toyota Highlander and looking rearward out the driver’s side window.The highlights of the night were viewing the Milky Way for the first time in February and seeing a couple of bright shooting stars. One was very bright and brilliantly lit up the sky, that is the one in this photograph. When I go out to shoot the stars, I don’t expect to see such amazing sites but I’m always hoping to see them. Although I miss some of them when I’m out in the field, when I get home and check out my photos I often get treated to some amazing sites! When I shoot I set my camera up a few hundred pictures from the same spot in order to make star trails however I only have a fifty percent chance to capture shooting stars since half of the time the camera is developing each picture. I feel successful when I get at least one outstanding shot.