It’s taken me a few days to sort through the images from my two nights of photography. Looking through them I’m transported back to those warm nights again.

Before my photography friend arrived that night I spent a few minutes capturing the sky above the dunes and houses along the road. It was an image I’d had in my head since my last trip up to this area, back in May. I think it looks like an amazing painting, and I’m glad I got to go back and get it.

Once she arrived we went down to the beach to see what there was to see.

It was a very windy night. We were pushing our tripod legs deep into the sand to try to reduce camera shake. The wind was cool, but I never felt cold until we stopped shooting. The adrenalin kept me warm.

The sky was stunning. The Milky Way was so clear. And when we turned around to face north the lit lighthouse was beautiful too.

The moon and several planets were supposed to line up around 4:30 that morning, so though we were done shooting the lighthouse and the Milky Way around 3:00, we thought it would be a waste not to stay and see. It was warmer up on the road, and we stood around talking as we waited for the moon to come up.

The moonrise was stunning, but it was rising through a bank of clouds and only intermittently visible. And in the end we didn’t see them all lined up, just Jupiter and sometimes Mars, and the moon.

But even without planets we were both smiling when we finally headed to bed just as the sun was beginning to light up the world.

We knew we’d had a wonderful night under the stars, and if we were lucky we’d be out the next night too.

Stay tuned.