Orleans Homesite - Page 1 of 1

We visited friends in Orleans, a rural hamlet in the wooded mountains near the eastern boundary of Humboldt County. They had a lovely secluded home overlooking the Klamath River.

We stayed overnight at their house, and I took some evening and night pictures. After the moon set, the stars were brilliant and the Milky Way was very easy to see, a real treat for a big-city dweller like me. I tried taking pictures of the stars, with limited success. There were two technical problems: First, I didn't have a tripod, so I propped-up the camera on the roof of a car in the driveway. Second, the longest exposure the camera can take is 30 seconds, and star pictures usually require much longer exposures. When I downloaded the pictures from the camera to my computer, the stars were barely visible. However, I was able to extract a surprising amount of additional detail by tweaking the pictures using a photo processing program (by increasing the gamma). The results were much better, although still not as good as a film camera on a tripod.

This is their home, which overlooks the Klamath River.		To get this time-exposure night picture of the house, I propped-up the camera in the bird bath (which luckily didn't have any water in it).

Just after sunset, the just-past new moon started to set. I took this picture with the camera propped-up on the railing of their deck, since I didn't have a tripod.		Stars in the sky over their driveway.

I went for a walk along the main road to Orleans (Route 96) and saw this interesting tree.		This pond was along the road, on the side opposite the tree (and river).

Reeds in the roadside pond.