New Star Trails

I finally got the chance to test my new digital SLR (Nikon D70) out on some long-time exposures for star trails. The moon set really early on Saturday night and I was in a place with low light pollution. I was initially cynical that it wouldn't be worth it on a digital SLR, but surprisingly if you use the special long-time noise reduction tool you can get usable results!

Here's one that was a bit more than 10 minutes long from night before last up at my sister's land in southern Colorado looking towards the Wet Mountains. You can see the light from the Milky Way emanating from above the trees on the middle right into the night sky. Make sure to view it large, since the photo is so dark it's hard to see at this small size (click photo to view large).

The Wrong Flower

A butterfly lands on a flower. A crab spider gets dinner. The crab spider often lies in wait on flowers, sometimes it pays off.

Hot Summer Flora

Happily these flowers continue to bloom in spite of the recent heat.

Cold, Wet and Super-Saturated

Saturated colors that is. We went on a rafting trip this past weekend up on the Colorado River in the Gore Canyon area. We rafted 12 miles down the river and spent nearly that entire time in the rain. There were a few who were cold, but I really enjoyed the day and especially enjoyed the intense colors the diffuse cloud-lighting brought out.

Here is the Colorado River at the mouth of Upper Gore Canyon where the river quickly turns into world-class rapids upstream from here:

On Sunday we decided to drive the scenic route home over Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was quite the storm, with some pretty serious wind and cold. We had rain, sleet and mist all at the same time when I took this next photo. The hill with rocks in the background would disappear into the clouds every few moments while we were there.

I like the dark moody feel. Best viewed large (click on photo)!



Here's another from Trail Ridge (again, best viewed large) :

You were up for the sunrise, when?

Just wanted to show off this photo that just won an icon of the day prize over on Flickr. Woot!

A morning scene at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. This is just before the sun fully emerged. Bosque is easily one of the finest locations for bird photography I have been.