Joshua Tree: A Glimpse of the Heavens
After a few months of being buried in work, I was ready to travel again! Luckily, traveling is also a way for me to meet my partner and my family, both of whom live in separate continents. So with a suitcase full of dreams, I head out to California to see my partner.
Our family trip to Neil island had kept me on a lookout for stargazing and spotting the Milky Way in the night sky. California seemed like a great place to chase this dream, given that this state is famous for its clear skies. Moreover, the Milky Way season was just beginning! I did a lot of homework before planning this trip. A stargazer’s paradise is a new moon night, which we unfortunately missed because both of us were busy with work in our own cities. My partner wanted to show me a National Park and I wanted to chase the Milky Way; so we chose to visit the Joshua Tree National Park, which is also an International Dark Sky Park! I consulted the light pollution map and stalked various weather apps to check whether the conditions would be ideal during our visit. I also read up on how to click decent long exposure photos on a phone camera (these photos have a high resolution, so they may need some more time to load). Finally, we booked an Airbnb very close to the park that offered a backyard fit for stargazing, so we wouldn’t have to drive to far off places in the middle of the night.
Our Backyard
We reached Joshua Tree after sunset, while the moon was illuminating the clear sky. The Stellarium app helped us narrow down the time and location of the rising Milky Way core, which is below the horizon from October to February. The core was to rise at 3 am at the South-Eastern horizon, giving us a good 3-4 hours of dreamless sleep, before waking up to our dream. Our alarm rang at 3:30 am, and I layered up with jackets and blankets and sprinted outside. I waited patiently for the moon to set, and marveled at how the setting moon looked a lot like the rising sun.
It was a super windy night in the desert, and we had to focus a lot to see the milky sky the night was offering to us. After some discussion, we realised that the faint cloud we were staring at was indeed the Milky Way! The dense core was visible near the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius, but it wasn’t as clear to the naked eyes as it was to my phone camera. My sister (who is an excellent photographer) advised me to shift to a 64 MP camera, and the results were magical!
As a stargazer trapped among the city lights, a sky full of stars has always been my dream. When I stared up at the thick blanket of stars, I realised what I’d been missing since childhood. I couldn’t believe how many of us lose out on this view due to the sparkling lights of our cities. I’ll always be a city girl, but at times like these I am reminded of just how much nature has to offer. To be wrapped in a thick blanket under hundreds of stars drinking tea with the love of my life was better than anything I had ever dreamt of. We read about the Greek mythology behind the constellations and relived the stories. Our attention was drawn to Sagittarius who had an arrow pointed at Scorpius’s heart! We marveled at the sky like two toddlers ogling at the ice cream truck.
I will always remember this night, for I was lucky enough to experience it with the one person who means the world to me. My stargazing equipment (phone camera, tripod and Bluetooth remote) exceeded my expectations, making this blog post a real joy to write! This night was a reminder of how a little bit of luck and a lot of planning can get the nature to behave :) This experience took me back to a poem I had written sometime back:
The soft pearls radiate their luminescence.
Rulers of darkness, a model for the lens.
Aligning themselves on a dark velvet shawl.
Engulfed with the glow of the brightest one of all.
His majesty disappears once a while,
Leaving specks of heaven above your head.
They brighten the world with their light,
People name them after the dead.
I don’t have much more to say so I’ll leave you with some spectaculatar photos I never thought I would have the chance to click. If I were to wish upon a star, I would wish for this night, and nothing more!
