JUPITER AND TELESCOPE PEAK - 29 December 2014

Pre-Dawn Sunrise at Badwater - Death Valley National Park, California

Link to original image: http://www.tom-hill.biz/Galleries/Scenics/California/i-HrgN6mb/A
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Here's a picture taken at the lowest point in the lower-48 states. Badwater sits more than 200 ft below sea level. When you first hear that number you think "that's huge." But, when you park at Badwater and turn around to the steep cliff above the parking lot, there's a sign that says "sea level." It sure doesn't see we're that much below sea level.

I got to this point to correct my mistakes from the previous morning. I slept in just a little bit and missed most of the pre-dawn stars that you see here. My goal this particular morning was to correct my mistake and see what I could make.

Originally I was simply trying to get the Telescope Peak mountain range making the western border of Death Valley with a bunch of stars. When reviewing my images in the camera you could tell one of the stars was way more prominent than the others. Checking my phone--i.e. there's a star app for that--I found the "star" was actually Jupiter which lined up pretty well with Telescope Peak, the portion of the mountain with all the snow.

The star/sky portion of this image was shot about an hour and half prior to sunrise. The foreground terrain was taken about 30 minutes prior to sunrise. Of course, you can't see both of this in a single viewing with the human eye. But, through the magic of Photoshop, I'm able to combine them to make the image you see here.

This image was shot my last morning in Death Valley, a couple of hours before I did that bicycle ride that crossed the 5,000 mile threshold.

One more thing. I was out there for at least an hour before the next car drove up. By then there were hardly any stars meaning they missed what I created here.

Cheers

Tom