Sky’s the Limit: Acclaimed photographer’s work exhibited in Overton

Thursday, June 9, 2005 | 8:28 a.m.

He's given us images of Comet Hale-Bopp flying over Joshua Tree National Park and images of Mars rising in the east behind Poodle Rock at Valley of Fire State Park in 2003, when the planet was its closest to earth in nearly 60,000 years.

He has captured a Leonid Meteor blazing above the fiery rocks of Joshua Tree National Park and a meteor trail marking orange clouds at sunrise.

Camping for days in the desert, he makes familiar landscapes appear otherworldly, using only his camera and a light to illuminate the foreground.

Rather than taking us to the heavens with a telescopic lens, Pacholka shares his own experiences: watching the mainly moonless sky from Earth with the rocky terrain and Joshua trees in the foreground.

"I try to reflect what I'm actually seeing," Pacholka said. "When you see Mars over Poodle Rock, it gives you perspective.

"I fell in love with Valley of Fire State Park. It felt like I was on Mars. The terrain is somewhat Martian like."

Through June, the Lost City Museum in Overton is displaying Pacholka's photos of Mars over Valley of Fire and his other night sky images.

Trekking to the museum, 50 miles from the outskirts of Las Vegas, in extreme temperatures might seem daunting this time of year, especially when they can be seen on his Web site, www.astropics.com. But getting out of the city is what Pacholka hopes to inspire.

"There's a lot of awesome stuff up there night after night," Pacholka said. "The Milky Way is just spectacular."

This week, Pacholka has been driving around Death Valley, Lake Mead, Bryce Canyon and Zion national parks and the town of Rhyolite, capturing the Milky Way and other celestial matter.

The locations are prime for sky viewing, said Dan Duriscoe, physical scientist and Night Sky Observer for the National Park Service, adding that the Western United States, from the Rocky Mountains to the Mojave Desert, is one of the world's premier areas for viewing the night sky. (Chile, central Australia and parts of Asia, he said, are other good locations.)

"You'd be surprised," Duriscoe said. "In Southern Nevada, the ability to see the stars is amplified by really remarkable weather and night skies. There's not a lot of moisture in the air. You've got roughly 200 cloudless nights."

Also, Duriscoe said, "The stars in Death Valley will illuminate the land efficiently. Out in the open desert, even on a moonless night, there's a lot of starlight. It's a real special experience to spend a couple of hours out there at night."

To catch a meteor shower, which happens every August, Pacholka, a resident of Long Beach, Calif., heads to the desert and shoots the sky the night before, during and after the event.

"Usually on average I take 300 to 500 shots," he said. "And I might get one with a meteor in it.

"It's not that easy. Chances are greatly against me for catching anything. My target right now is to shoot the Milky Way over differing things. With the Milky Way, I can shoot it 10 nights a month."

Dark skies

Pacholka's work has been featured as Time magazine's Pictures of the Year (1997 and 2003) and in the book "Life the Year in Pictures" (2003), and occasionally on NASA's Picture of the Day Web site.

Duriscoe said that Death Valley National Park, where Pacholka recently photographed the sky, is one of the 10 or 12 national parks that is darkest for viewing the billions of stars.

"It's just out in the middle of nowhere," Duriscoe said. "There's so much public land around it so it's never going to have cities around it."

Dark skies, far from the cities, are what astronomers desperately search for. Finding them can be a daunting task for local astronomers battling the lights of Las Vegas.

"It's getting worse because of light pollution from Las Vegas," said Geary Keilman, president of the Las Vegas Astronomical Society. "The Luxor beam. It's the bane of astronomers."

Keilman, who joined the club with his wife in 1997, said, "I used to be able to observe from my balcony. I used to see things I can't see now."

With the group, composed of 150 to 200 amateur astronomers, he attends monthly observing sessions or joins group treks to the Grand Canyon, Furnace Creek (in Death Valley) or to Cathedral Gorge State Park.

Keilman said that he occasionally observes from as close as Red Rock, but explained, "it's slowly getting worse because of the (Red Rock) Station Casino on Charleston. We're having to go further out. We can see the light dome from the Grand Canyon (north rim)."

Still, Keilman said, "We'll go out and look at meteor showers. Valley of Fire is a great place to observe the night sky. You can see the Milky Way and brighter star clusters, occasionally a lunar eclipse. Occasionally you can see a comet."

The farther from Las Vegas, the better your chances are.

"Las Vegas has got some horrible lights," Duriscoe said. "Las Vegas is annoying. It looks like the moon perpetually coming up from the east.

"It's not casinos so much, billboards are illuminated from underneath. There's a lot of wasted light going into the sky, not on billboards."

But it's not Las Vegas that poses a potential threat to that area. Because of their close proximity to Death Valley, lights from Mount Charleston, Pahrump and Armagosa Valley are more threatening.

Prime time

Pacholka knows what it's like to have the night sky blocked by city lights. When he was 16, his family moved from Shadow Gay, Montreal, to Long Beach, Calif., where he had to drive outside of town to see the sky.

"I started venturing out into the desert to see the stars and I fell in love with the desert scenery," Pacholka said. "Ever since I was a kid, I've had fascination with the night sky. As soon as I opened my first science book in seventh grade and realized, 'Hey there are planets up there.' "

Pacholka started shooting the sky and its billions of stars as a way to share the experiences with friends and family. He's now turned it into a profession, selling the images on cards and creating giclee reproductions on canvas.

"His technique, he's got it perfected," Duriscoe said. "He looks for these nice remarkable events in the sky and he gets the landscape in front of them. It's hard to do both because the stars move and the earth doesn't.

"It's a real art form. Most astrophotographers are just guiding their instruments on the sky. If they get land, the stars would be blurred."

Duriscoe, who gives star talks at Death Valley Furnace Creek Airport, where there are wide-open skies and lights are dim, said that moonless or minimal moon nights are best for observing the skies.

During the summer or early fall sky views are best at higher locations. Strong winds can be a deterrent in the summer. October, November and winter months, he said, are more calm.

"Some of the finest nights I've see have been in January, when it's really steady and calm," Duriscoe said.

For shooting the sky, he added, "The average person can do something with a little moon or a crescent moon behind the shoulder and a nice constellation in front because the moon can illuminate the land."

But, Duriscoe said, "It's an expensive hobby. You've got to spend a lot of money on lenses to get that ultra-fast lens and short exposure."

For those who simply want to view, Keilman, who got interested in the night sky as a child when the then-Soviet Union launched the satellite Sputnik in the 1950s, said that a good telescope can be found for $200 to $300, but binoculars and the naked eye will also do.

"You can see the Milky Way with the naked eye, Polaris Sirius, the constellations," he said. "It's a wonderful way to learn constellations, with the naked eye.

"Astronomy is a good thing because it's kind of a nexus of the good sciences. And it's just fun to get out of the house once in a while."

Pacholka would second that.

After spending a few days under the stars, he said, "It's hard to come back."

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