CARMA is the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy. Bet you’re pleased you now know that!
We were under the impression that you could see it from the side of highway 395, south of Bishop CA, and north of Big Pine. Our plan was that we’d jump a fence and spend a night avoiding security, after all it’s only a 7 hour drive from our home. Before departing we checked in with a friend who’s usually good about security advice, and lo-and-behold an epic 3 day road trip between PhotoshopScaresMe and StarCircleAcademy was born.
The drive there, around the top of Yosemite was stunning, evening taking in to account that we rolled down hill into Bridgeport with a Jeep powered by the memories of gas long spent. Checking in to a fine (and soon to be closed) motel in Lee Vining we prepared for our first long night under the big sky – stars over tufas. The idea was that we’d spend all night out there amongst the salt beds and strange formations but as it approached midnight, we finally admitted defeat and headed home. It gets cold on a windswept lake, 6,500 feet above see level. But thanks to some masterful light painting, a perfectly passable image was made – probably the only one of the trip.
When you’re on a night photo mission the days are a real pain. You can’t sleep because either it’s too bright in your tent (or car) or the hotel kicks you out. However, this one was pretty cool. We tooled around climbing rocks and generally having a nice time, all in the name of seeing ancient Petroglyphs.
That evening was the reason for the trip. Good CARMA. Except we were wrong, it’s not a few telescopes on the side of a road, its dozens of them on top of a hill. In fact, it’s the worlds largest array until ALMA powers up. Nerd stuff aside, it never occurred to us that there would be so much light at a night sky installation. Obviously, you’re smarter than us and you know that radios don’t care about light pollution but wow, this place was bright. Kinda makes it hard to photo a night sky when everything is constantly moving and brightly lit.
The above shot was of sunset, and strangely for us, it’s straight from the camera with no Photoshop!
This image is a long exposure of one of the giant telescopes blended with a still image. The idea of mixing frozen stars and moving stars was born because we couldn’t process it well enough what with all the dashing about this giant beast was doing. We now see that lots of people have taken this approach, so we guess we won’t be patenting it. Bugger.
With the light bouncing all over the place, and the movement, it was really hard to get a better picture than this. However, Steve_The_Amusing somehow managed to do so. Check his work out.
It’s trendy these days to blend photos in to a time-lapse video. We think this is our first. According to well-aimed critics, consensus says it should be our last.
Watch and be awed at just how terrible it is.
Thanks for stopping by.
Come on, talk to us!