Mars Over Metate Arch

A thin cloud layer near the horizon causes Saturn, Mars and Antares to glow just above Metate Arch. (One exposure with a Canon 5DM3, Tamron 15-30mm @ 15mm, f/2.8, 25 sec, ISO 6400, WB 3800ºK, 3 stationary lights filtered to 3200ºK.) ~ © Royce Bair (click to enlarge)

“Mars over Metate Arch”, Devil’s Garden, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah. I took this 11 days ago (on May 5, 2016) from the “back” side of the arch (compare with the “front” side image at the bottom of this post). This is such a unique and extremely dark, Bortle-1 Class area.

This cropped enlargement of the top image shows the alignment of Mars, Saturn and Antares. A thin cloud layer near the horizon causes the stars and planets to glow more than normal. ~ © Royce Bair 

Look this month for Mars and Saturn near Antares, the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius the Scorpion. They make a noticeable triangle on the sky’s dome.

This illustration by Mikhail Chubarets shows how large Mars will be this month, with its largest and brightest on May 22 (click to enlarge).

By the time Mars reaches its crest of brightness in late May, it will have quadrupled in brilliance since the beginning of April. Currently, Mars is nearly as brilliant as Jupiter! Mars has greater swings in brilliance than any other solar system planet, except for Mercury. At is brightest, Mars shines some 80 times more brilliantly than at its faintest. This is Mars’ month, the best month in two years to watch the red planet!

Why is Mars getting so bright? For most of the past two years, Earth has been fleeing ahead of Mars in orbit. Mars orbits just one step outward from us, and we move slightly faster in orbit, and – about every two years – we catch up to Mars again and pass between it and the sun. That’ll happen next in late May, 2016. Astronomers will say that Mars is in opposition to the sun around that time.

Opposition of Mars and Saturn for 2016 in the Constellations of Libra and Scorpius from LarryKoehn on Vimeo.

Opposition occurs when a planet is in line with the earth and the Sun. This year, Mars will be at opposition on May 22nd followed by Saturn on June 3rd. Opposition of a planet also means the planet can be seen all night long from sunset to sunrise. Mars this year will come as close as 47 million miles to Earth in May.

The "Front" side of Metate Arch, or the side that most people see first, when walking through Devil's Garden. This side faces north, where the stars are stunning, but the Milky Way's Central Bulge never appears ~ © Royce Bair

 

Hoodoos, Stars and Lightning by Phillip Monson

Toadstool Hoodoos, Grand Stair-case Escalante ~ © Phillip Monson (click to enlarge)
Canon 5D Mark III • EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II lens @ 35mm • f/3.2 • 30 sec • ISO 640

I'll let Phill describe how this photo was produced: "After shooting the sunset at the Toadstool Hoodoos in Grand Staircase-Escalante [National Monument], my friend and I headed back to our 'camp' for the night so we could rest up before an early morning. With a full moon out, it totally washed out the sky so we didn't plan on any night shots. Around 4:00 A.M., however, we were awaken up by an intense lightning show; and with the moon having set, we knew it was too good an opportunity to pass up, so we made the hike back out and set up. The storm moved perfectly behind the best side of the main hoodoo, and with the moon gone, we got a few stars as well."

The light painting was done with a Brinkmann Dual Xenon Spotlight, which he bounced off the rocks to the side of him, in order to get more even coverage.

Below, is another image from Phill's beloved southwest desert area of Utah. It is in an area known as the "Devil's Garden" of the Escalante region. There was a gap between the foreground area and the tall hoodoos where he hid and pointed the Dual Xenon light at the ground, enabling him to get the even bounce light onto the hoodoos.  [Editor's note: experienced light painters often employ this bounce or reflection technique to produce even lighting in close quarters, or use it to give directional lighting to objects hundreds of feet away. The reflected light also tends to warm and amplify the colors of these sandstone formations.]

"Three Patriarchs", Grand Stair-case Escalante ~ © Phillip Monson (click to enlarge)
Canon 5D Mark III • EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II lens @ 16mm • f/3.2 • 30 sec • ISO 640

Phillip Monson got his first DSLR, a Canon Rebel, in late 2008 for a trip to Europe, and has been hooked on making images ever since. Phill found landscape photography to be his biggest interest, primarily of the southwest deserts of Utah. He tries to frequent these areas every other month. When not working as a sales trainer at his day job, he tries to get out as much as possible to the amazing scenery that Utah has to offer. Phill is also currently working on a photo book of all the Utah LDS Temples. More of his photography can be found at his Facebook, Flickr, and Google+ pages.