Month: August 2023

Champney & Pitcher Falls

Jeremy

Champney Falls and Pitcher Falls are on the southern side of the Kancamagus highway in New Hampshire.

The falls are named after Benjamin Champney who was an artist in the White Mountains region. He was born in 1817 and died in 1907.

The trail runs up alongside the Champney Brook for about 1.5 miles. The trail starts at the same trailhead as the Piper trail, which is a very popular route up Mount Chocorua. Since I set out this day both mid-morning and without a clear plan, I was lucky to find a parking space. Moreson since I stopped to stretch my legs and take some photos from an overlook on the Kancamagus highway.

This trip was partly to test out my new hiking boots, and also how my gear was working out for my upcoming trip to Iceland. The last place to work out issues is on an expensive landscape photography trip!

I worked my way up the trail to the falls. The day was still, humid as heck and overly warm, with temperatures up in the mid to high 70’s (that’s about 25 Celsius).

I made the falls in about book time, which is nothing short of astonishing given how long it has been since I’ve been up in the hills.

I spent a couple of hours taking pictures and flying the drone. Overall, it was a worthwhile trip. Considering the new boots, I only had one blister, and that’s when I noticed the heel of that hiking sock as almost worn through. Oops.

Of course, this post is useless without pictures. So here they are.

From the Overlook:

Champney Falls:

Pitcher Falls:

Under the stars again

Jeremy

My, my, what an awful summer this has been. Between rain, clouds and smoke from the fires in Canada, time out doing astrophotography has been somewhat rare.

Nevertheless, I recently got a grabbed a couple of nights out under the stars. And these are the results.

This a very widefield image of the area around NGC-6888, the crescent nebula. The crescent is that small blob in the center of the image. The rest of the image is covered by huge clouds of hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen and dust. The clouds of hydrogen glow red as they are energized by the nearby stars and glow in much the same way as a neon tube. (Am I dating myself there?)

This is also a widefield image around the area of NGC-7000, the North American Nebula. The reason for the name should be apparent looking at the image.

This is also an area rich in energized hydrogen gas that glows red.