Mars over Mittens, Twilight at Monument Valley Nov 1, 2005, Monument Valley AZ Pentax 6×7, Provia 400, 30 sec at f/3.5
I have long been fascinated by the landscapes of the southwest, and in particular the peculiar rock formations found in Monument Valley, a unique area straddling Arizona and Utah. I am not the only one that finds them intriguing: it is a very popular photographic and film-making target.
When a business trip took me to a conference in Phoenix, I
decided to prepend a personal trip to this Navajo Nation Tribal Park to take pictures
of the night sky. My plans were
ambitious; I wanted to take wide angle star trail photos featuring the famous
buttes, but also, knowing how remote and dark this area would be, to take
guided astrophotos of some deep sky targets.
Third Tail Lake Zumbra (Victoria MN), 9:00 pm 8 April 97. Kiev-88 80mm, 5 minutes at f/4 on PMC400.
Notes from Thor’s
astrophoto journal:
On April 8, a friend joined me to observe Hale-Bopp at my
nearby and nearly-dark site at Lake Zumbra.
We enjoyed watching the very young moon set, then went about preparing
to take some pictures. I was hoping to get a shot taken at a smaller lens
aperture so the stars would have less distortion than in my earlier photos.
City Cometscape Lake Calhoun looking at Minneapolis, 4:00 am 23 March 97. Kiev-88, 80mm , 20 seconds at f/4 on PMC400.
Notes from Thor’s
astrophoto journal:
I thought that the view of comet Hale-Bopp over a cityscape would make a striking photograph. There were only certain view angles and observing times that worked however. To get the comet to hang over downtown Minneapolis in March, the time worked out to be around 3:00 am along a northeast line of sight. Surprisingly few vantage points existed; the streets headed off in the wrong direction, or the view was obscured by trees, buildings or streetlights.
Hale-Bopp over Hyland Tower Bloomington MN, 4:00 am 15 March 97. Kiev-88 80mm f/2.8, 30 second exposure on Tech Pan 120 film.
Notes from Thor’s
astrophoto journal:
This picture was taken with a Kiev-88, which is a
Russian-made clone of a Hasselblad (a
high quality camera that was taken to
the moon). It uses the larger size 120
format film. A colleague suggested that
this unused camera should be stored in my office instead of his. And since I had no use for it there, I
decided I should try it out on one of my comet photo outings.
Another challenge in making photographs of the night sky
On a summer camping trip with my family some years ago, I attempted to make a star trail picture showing Mt Hood in Oregon as reflected in one of the nearby alpine lakes. Unfortunately, that remote location was not quite remote enough, and I found that other campers were intruding on my composition.
Taking pictures at night is often a
solo experience, and while it is true that there are times when one is quite
alone, there are plenty of times when the abundance of humans on the planet provides
company, desired or not.
I was 16 years old when Apollo-11 landed on the moon. Color television had been invented but most TVs were still black and white. I had seen a few color televisions on display and in other homes, but the color was usually awful, partly because the broadcasting signals had to be compatible with black and white sets.
I have encountered various unexpected events while photographing the night sky. Some are spectacular, like the flash of a brilliant meteor exploding in the sky and lighting up the landscape. Some are startling: the crash of a tree felled by a nocturnal beaver. Some are annoying: the competitive calling of amorous ducks and their disruption of the mirror lake surface I was trying to photograph. And some are downright dangerous.
From my gun collection: an electron gun, extracted from a cathode ray tube
After years of fearing the consequences of corporate RIFs (“reduction in force”), aka layoffs, and having survived a dozen or more of them, I had finally reached the point where losing my job would have a lesser consequence. I had built up my savings in anticipation of some future retirement and was now working for the sheer pleasure of it.
I had always declared that if the work became tiresome or that I was no longer learning things, I would move on to something else. But those conditions never happened, and at age 65, a time when many decide to hang it up for an easier day, I found that my company was still interested in what I had to offer. I continued my happy employment, pleased to be paid for work that was valued.
That changed this last summer, when the company was acquired by a venture capital firm that offered a stock premium in exchange for taking it private and pursuing a new business plan. I hope that the company will thrive and continue their pioneering transformation of the print industry from analog presses to digital, but I will not be there to see it.
My ride along that road has ended, as the new management has deemed my color imaging scientist position no longer required. Though I will miss the technical challenges and problem-solving, this actually works out well for me.
I had been wondering how to transition to part-time status in order to more fully engage in the activities promoted by my travel-addicted partner. Further, I have no shortage of personal projects that have been put on hold over the years, and new ones that are still being formulated. I contemplated what would happen if the daytime hours suddenly became available to pursue them.
I am currently finishing up my work for the company and clearing my office. Decades of projects have left behind strata of artifacts: notebooks, schematics, prototypes, presentations, test prints, research papers, and a myriad of business cards of professional contacts. As I encounter them, I must perform a version of triage: discard/recycle, preserve for whomever next takes them on, or claim them for my personal scrapbook, including the “distributed computer museum”. It is all a trigger for nostalgia.
I don’t have time for reminiscing now though. To plow through it, I make the unreliable promise to review it again later, when I can properly share it with the people that I worked with, and the families that lived through it. I will attempt to craft a proper story around each artifact. Maybe they will serve as an informal history of the life and times of what has been a wonderful and fascinating career.
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