The Milky Way

One of the things I was most excited about trying to capture with my new camera was the night sky here at Montezuma Well. It's pretty spectacular to stand in our yard and marvel at the amazing number of stars visible above us. Well, I tried my hand at a long-exposure image this evening. The results definitely aren't spectacular, but you can at least see the milky way.

I'm assuming I'd need some sort of equatorial mount with a motor on it to get really clear pictures. Well, that and perhaps use a tripod with a remote shutter button, rather than the hood of our car and a very cold finger trying to keep the camera steady.

Speaking of which, it's starting to get really cold at night. I wouldn't be surprised if the temp got down to 30 tonight. Holy crap, it didn't take long for Arizona to turn me into a wimp. Still, I'm not really complaining. I'd much rather have this than the 114 degree days we had all summer.

Anyway, when I got home this evening, I noticed a miniature drama unfolding on our front step. A tarantula hawk had immobilized a giant crab spider and was dragging it around, trying to find a place to bury it in the concrete of our step, apparently.

She wasn't having much luck, and spent the better part of an hour dragging the poor spider back and forth across the step. She disappeared with it later this evening, so I'm assuming she was able to find some suitable dirt in which to bury it. Here's a video of her trying to maneuver the large spider around under the eaves of our house.