This one caught a meteor! I didn't see it happen as I was moving between 3 cameras constantly. During the midnight hour the wind started gusting beyond a pleasant breeze to keep things cool. Very few mosquitoes in a desert unless a water source is nearby so thank goodness for that. Bats and moths are attracted by the light and motion so they cruise through now and then. But as the wind gusts grew so did the dust particles floating in said wind gusts. The entire area is an ancient lakebed which dried up after leaking out to sea via Oregon. This makes for the super fine dust like baby powder great for being suspended airborne much longer than sand particles. When vehicles were active the dust blanket was ten feet thick covering many acres. As I approached the site earlier in the evening at sunset, I could see a thick fog-like blanket of dust suspended around the stone outcroppings giving the place its name "The Knolls". All I had to do was drive further south than any campers and riders to get outside of the dirt blanket. The wind was a game changer by 12:30 AM as the gusts exceeded 20 MPH and caused camera shakes galore.

This shot was taken at one foot above the ground to have the least vibrations from the wind. The camera sensor was quite warm after continuous long exposure shots and images were getting extra noisy. But the amount of airborne dust sealed the deal and I packed up and drove home. On Saturday morning, I spent quite a while cleaning tripods, camera bodies and lenses. Checking the forecast for the coming week is nothing but sunshine all over Utah...so Tuesday I'm heading back out! Woohooo!

Canon T3i, Rokinon 14 mm lens, tripod

two second timer, 20 sec exposure @ f/2.8, ISO 6400

Cropped, color enhanced, sharpened.