During the summer months, the temperature in Muscat (and the rest of the country) can easily reach around 45 degrees centigrade. This, coupled with the humidity, can be challenging, to say the least. One of the options to escape the heat is to go up to the mountains in Jebel Akhdar, where at 2,200 m above sea level, the weather is cooler. The Sayq Plateau is one of my favorite areas, as you can read here:
I decided to go camping in the mountains during a recent weekend, namely to the Juniper Woods area, where I had already been a couple of times this year. It is about a 3 hour drive from Muscat, and I reached the camping site during mid-afternoon. After setting up my tent, I rested in the shade of a large tree reading a book.
One hour before the sunset, I picked up my Fuji X-T5 with a wide angle lens (Viltrox 13mm f/1.4 – a very nice lens by the way) and went walking in the surrounding hills. I wanted to photograph a particular tree that exists nearby; in fact I had photographed the same tree 20 years ago! Its trunk is twisted in such a way that resembles a cork screw. Walking around it is easy to find other photogenic trees.
After sunset I returned to the camp and had a nice dinner. I started planning for a session of astrophotography at night. I had two fast lenses with me, the Viltrox 13mm and the Fujinon 33mm f/1.4. However, due to the high temperature and humidity during the day, the sky was not clear; there were a few clouds and general haze. Thus, I decided to get some sleep in the early night, and check the conditions around midnight. Waking up later, the sky had cleared somewhat; there were still some wispy clouds low on the horizon, but the Big Dipper and Polaris were clear. I set up the camera on the tripod, adjusted the settings, and shot 200 photos at 20 seconds each for the star trail.
After that, I took a few more photos of the Milky Way with the 13mm lens. The light pollution prevented a clear view, but I got some nice images after stacking 10 photos. I converted the Milky Way image to black and white, and actually like the result, as it gets rid of the yellow cast from the light pollution.
Finally, I used the 33mm lens for a quick star trail around a tree.
This session took me about 2 hours, so I went back to my tent to catch some more sleep. I wanted to be up for sunset, which was around 5.20 in the morning. Not much sleeping time, but such is part of the effort to make some good photos. I watched the sunrise from the edge of cliff overlooking the mountain range, and was presented with a colorful display. Enjoying the silence and the cool breeze was well worth the sacrifice of giving up on sleeping time.
After having breakfast, it was time to drive down the mountain and back home. This was another wonderful trip to the Jebel Akhdar mountains.
