A slower day

We had planned to take a day off from hiking on Wednesday and we ended up taking it easy throughout the day. We got some planning done for the summer (we are again hoping to visit the Pacific Northwest as we had for summer of 2021), and changing some reservations (we are going to leave Organ Pipe on Friday, a day earlier than originally planned, as the memorial for a amateur radio friend in Mesa is Saturday and we did not want to rush to get there in time on Saturday morning).

Carl had wanted to see if we could get a picture like the one Dwayne took several years ago here at Organ Pipe campground:

"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands." Ps 19:1
Photo taken by Dwayne Cartwright, 3/21/2015, 4:04am, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Canon EOS 70D, 10mm, f/5.6, exposure time 60 seconds, ISO-6400

 https://trekincartwrights.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-night-sky.html

We don't have the same camera (it was a large Canon SLR with lots of lenses and capabilities that I figured I would never use so I gave it to Dwayne's son, David, after Dwayne's death), and it is a little early in the year (the "galactic center" of the Milky Way doesn't get above the horizon much before sunrise), but we decided to give it a try with one of the two small Canon cameras that we have:

There was one really bright star (we are pretty sure Venus) and the lights of Lukeville / Sonoyta along the ground level about 5 miles away. There's the slightest hint of what looks like a "cloud" in the sky but which we think is the Milky Way.

Another view of Venus with a few Saguaros in the foreground

Pictures taken by Carl Williams, 2/10/2022, 5:46am 

Canon PowerShot D10, 6mm, f2.8, shutter speed/exposure time 15 seconds (longest available), ISO-1600 (highest available), used tripod and timer function to stabilize

Note: I retrieved the focal length and f-stop from information stored with the picture by the camera; as far as I know, we did not set those. Carl did set the shutter speed and ISO. We took a few pictures at a lower ISO and got pretty much nothing other than Venus in those shots.

We're thinking we will try again possibly from Quartzsite, later in March, when the galactic center of the Milky Way should rise earlier in the night and be more visible above the horizon before sunrise.