Lately, not often, but once in awhile, I notice something in my periphery vision that looks like a person standing off in the distance. Down the road, across the lawn, far away. It’s just a moment, mostly a dark grey shadow, and when I look directly there’s nothing there. Once in awhile there’s a small tree or a mailbox but lots of times there’s nothing there at all.
I brought it up with my nurse practicioner at my annual physical and she asked me if I had told my ophthalmologist. I hadn’t but I had an appointment coming up, so I said I would. Today I sat in the chair with my eyes dialated and told him the story.
He started smiling and said he usually sees this in 90 year old people. And that it’s just my brain that sees something and fills in the rest to create, for a moment, something that makes sense. I had thought that was what was going on myself, so was relieved when he looked in my eyes and didn’t see anything to worry about.
But the whole experience reminded me of something that happened when I was processing photos from my night under the stars with a friend and her daughter. I processed one photo where the daughter’s phone was shining down near the bottom of the frame. I had been shooting the stars above her, but sometimes she ended up in the image.
On this particular photo, one of the first I worked on, I thought it was just her phone that was glowing. I used the ‘remove’ button in Lightroom to get rid of that glowing shape. I had never used that function before. I edited the rest of the image, knowing the whole bottom 1/3 of the picture was dark beach.
Turns out it was her face that was lit up, and when I erased her face I left the rest of her body intact. That is, if you read the instructions on how to use this button, a problem.
Witout knowing any of this I thought maybe I’d lighten up the dark beach just a touch and see how that looked beneath the Milky Way. And I got this:
Turns out I had only disappeared her face, and Lightroom, with it’s infinite AI wisdom knew there couldn’t be a person with no face, so it created one for me. If you look carefully you’ll see a guy sitting in a chair. The chair that was right there with us all night.
I actually thought for a couple minutes that some guy had joined us for the night of star gazing, even though I knew there was no guy there. And then I shared the new image with my friend and her daughter and they freaked out too.
No, no guy quietly came and sat in our chair. It’s just that AI completed the person I had left in the image. Just like my brain completes the image it thinks it sees out of the side of my eye.
No wonder it’s hard to know what the truth is anymore.
This time last week I was in northern Michigan at one of my favorite places (You may have noticed I have quite a few favorite places in northern Michigan) intent, once again, on getting the perfect Milky Way image.
Esch Beach, near Empire MI
I had a walk-in site at Platt River Campground, reserved weeks ago, and high hopes that at least one of the three nights would be clear.
My perfect camp site.
The site was beautiful. I knew it would be because I’d camped there once before a few years ago. It’s at the end of a trail, about 1/4 mile into the woods. Along the way are three other campsites, but mine was the last one.
This was my first camping trip of the season. It took me forever to get this tent up.
The good thing about a walk-in site is that there are no RVs near you running their air conditioning all night. (Though I wouldn’t have minded having air, it was 98 F inside my tent most of the first night.) The bad thing about a walk-in site is that you have to carry everything in. So I stayed pretty minimal.
Anyway. I had high hopes for Monday night, thinking it should be clear. And it was hot and sunny when I first arrived.
Before I even went to the campsite to set up the tent I drove the Pierce Stocking drive that provides a number of opportunities to stop and explore.
It’s almost mandatory that you take this image while you’re there.
But gradually, by late afternoon, clouds had moved in and that evening there were no stars to be seen. It even rained late Monday night, which brought the temperatures down. I was conflicted, grateful for the temperature relief but disappointed that I wasn’t out under the stars with my camera.
Looking toward Sleeping Bear dunes from Empire Beach on Tuesday.
Tuesday I explored a few beaches looking for possible places to shoot the Milky Way, if the sky ever cleared. But it didn’t clear that day.
Not very promising for star photography.
So I did the next best thing. I hiked a loop through the woods where there was the possibility of lots of birds. You know how I love taking photographs of birds. I had high hopes again of capturing something special.
Because I was covered in bug spray this was a fun hike.
About 2.5 miles, the trail was supposed to be filled with song birds, particularly warblers.
I took a close up picture of the map with my phone, and I’m glad I did. The trail wasn’t always obvious.
I heard lots of birds, none of them identified by my Merlin app as warblers, but I only saw one bird for a slight second, hidden in the trees, and I have no idea what it was.
I don’t suppose any of you know what this brownish bird is, hiding behind leaves and out of focus.
Tuesday night it rained again. I don’t mind a little rain on the tent, but it meant there was no star shooting that night either.
Wednesday was predicted to be overcast as well, so I made plans to drive about an hour north and meet a couple friends in Northport, another of my happy places. It was time to spend a little bit of time in civilization.
Scenic route through Pierce Stocking park.
That was definitely fun and had a lower mosquito to human ratio, but it deserves it’s own post, so stay tuned.
Let’s see. When I left you last my sister and I had driven a few hours north, scoped out a potential night sky photography site at a lighthouse, and set up our campsite at Harrisville State Park.
The view from our campsite.
The purpose of this three night camping adventure was to capture the Milky Way in darker skies than those around my house. I’d made the three night reservation six months ago in order to get a prime Lake Huron shoreline site.
I was sure that at least one night would have clear skies.
A view of the lighthouse from about where we planed to stand later that night.
Based on weather forecasts it looked like Monday night/Tuesday morning was my only chance. So we set our phone alarms to get us up at 2:00 a.m. and in the early morning darkness we drove the few miles to the lighthouse.
We quickly found the “X” we had drawn in the sand earlier in the day and began to set up shop. But while I was lengthening the tripod legs I noticed a light way out on the horizon, shining just above the bench I intended to use as a foreground. The light bothered me because it was so bright.
See that light in the middle of the horizon? It was a lot brighter than it looks here. The orange is light pollution.
I took a couple shots but didn’t like what I was seeing.
Too much light from towns to the south.
I decided to shorten the tripod legs in an attempt to hide the light behind the dune. I sent my sister over to the bench so I could try to focus on it, intending for it to be in the foreground which would be stitched together with another image with the focus being the stars.
She’s walking back using the red light. You can still see some of that bright light on the horizon to the right of her.
That didn’t work, I couldn’t focus on her at all, so I gave up that theory. Plus we were too far away from the bench and if I moved closer there would be that darn light out there on the horizon.
I decided to just try for a single image, nothing I had to stitch together later, just practicing getting the stars in focus. That worked and I took several of the same image so I’d have some spares to practice stacking when I got back home.
You can see the bench, but it’s really small and there’s too much light pollution.
But all the time I was focused on the Milky Way I’d been distracted by the lighthouse to my right. The grounds had a single large light on the other side of the building which was lighting up the side of the tower. I thought it was beautiful and wanted to get a shot of that even if it wasn’t a Milky Way image.
I started to move the camera around while not realizing the shutter was still open.
So once I was done with the multitude of stackable images of the Milky Way, and feeling disappointed in the images I had so far, I turned the camera toward the lighthouse. And the first test image I took I realized included a small part of the Milky Way!
How exciting, it was possible to get the Milky Way and the lighthouse in the same image! Quickly I shifted the camera to the right. And this is what I saw:
Nikon Z6ii, 20 mm, iso 3200, 12 seconds.
The yard light they had perfectly lit the tower without being obscene. I had enough time in between flashes of light to get the image because there was so much other light around. And by moving to the right I had eliminated most of the ugly orange light pollution that blasted out over the lake.
I was thrilled.
The rest of the night I worked on getting the best composition, and then taking multiple shots to stack later. I think I was also trying to get one image with the lighthouse in focus that I could use as a foreground to be blended with my best sky shot.
To be honest I don’t know if I did that. I haven’t looked closely at all the images yet. I fell in love with the single image I’m showing you now and sort of stopped looking after that.
It’s such a great reminder of the entire adventure.
If I don’t end up doing anything more with these I’ll still be happy. I need to read the study guides in my online class to learn how to do blends where part of the image is from one shot with the foreground in focus and the rest of the image is from a sky shot with the stars in focus. It can’t be that hard. Right?
Right???!
So what did we do the rest of our three nights at Harrisville? Well…this has gotten too long already so once again you’ll have to wait and see. But I don’t think anything we did the rest of our time there will top that first night.
Hint: There were no more clear skies, day OR night!
When I’m out shooting the stars I don’t feel the cold. My sister, who was patiently waiting for me was marching up and down the beach trying to thaw her toes. I didn’t notice the cold until we got back to the car, and then I realized I was cold to the core.
We got back to camp about 5 a.m. and headed to our tents to get one hour of sleep before the 6 a.m. sunrise which we wanted to photograph. But we were both so cold all we did was shiver in our tents, even with our electric blankets, as we waited for the sun to come up.
The first hint of sunrise.
And after we got a couple shots with the sun rising we scurried to McDonalds to get a hot cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwich. It took a couple hours before we were ready to head back to our tents for a nap.
It was pretty but we were too cold to appreciate it.
Warm was good.
So Monday night/Tuesday morning was the highlight of our camping adventure. Would it be worth it to stick around Harrisville for the rest of our reservation? Hard to say. When I get some more time I’ll show you around town.
I’ve been waiting for a clear night with no moon and Saturday night/Sunday morning was it. It’s early Milky Way season and it would be visible for a couple hours before sunrise.
I just had to find a dark place to wait.
I got up at 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning, got to Shiawasee Nature Preserve, about an hour north of me, by 3:30. I thought I was prepared. I knew which direction to look. I had the Skyview app loaded in my phone. I had a compass. I’d been there during the daytime and had scoped out a spot to stand that was very near where my car would be parked.
So it was with high hopes I got out of the car in 32 degree weather (but no wind!) wearing a winter coat, scarf, hat, and gloves. I walked the few feet to my chosen spot, set up the tripod and pointed it to the SE. And saw….nothing. A few stars. Nothing much was visible because the light from Flint, 28 miles away, was overwhelming.
I began to doubt myself. Maybe it wasn’t really in the SE. Maybe it was more South by now. After all it was last week I had the training that said Southeast…maybe it moves faster than I imagined. I couldn’t remember the name of the constelations I was supposed to use to find the Milky Way. I couldn’t figure out how to put Antaras (a star) into the Skyview app on my phone to find it.
I was reduced to randomly pointing the camera at the sky in any location I thought it might be and shooting. I saw a few bright stars I thought might be the ‘teapot’ and concentrated on that section of the sky. But that was due South, and I knew that wasn’t right. Still, looking to the Southeast was just too bright.
As I played with my settings I couldn’t check to see if my images were getting better or worse because the back of my camera went black. Apparently I had touched some random button that disabled the live view. Sigh.
I tried the proven trick of upping my iso to the highest it could go, just so I could see what was there, and it was totally blown out white. I tried lowering it some, still white. My fingers were getting cold. My toes were numb. I’d been out there for an hour getting nothing.
In fact, this is my favorite shot from Sunday morning.
My fingers were numb and I didn’t realize I had hit the remote shutter button when I moved the camera.
When I got home I found this image, as the best of the bunch. The Milky Way is in there, if you squint hard and use your imagination. I’ve tried editing it to bring it out more…but I can’t figure that out either on this one. Trying to bring the Milky Way lights up while dimming the Flint dome light is just so hard.
If you sit in a dark room, blow this up, and squint you should be able to see the MW over on the left.
So I reluctantly posted my image on our group’s Facebook page, explaining my issues (well, the issues revolving photography anyway!) and look below at what someone did for me! They edited it so that you can actually see the Milky Way.
Thank you Geralynn Dykstra for the edit!!!!
I’m not so discouraged now. I DID get the Milky Way in the image! I even got stars reflected in the strip of water! I won’t go out to this location for another attempt, there’s just way too much light. But I’ll keep going to dark sky places and I know that eventually I’ll capture the sky the way I see it in my head.
Yesterday the sun came out and it was so pretty that I bugged and bugged my mom to take me somewhere fun.
I would just like to point out how beautiful my fur is.
So she did! We went over to a park in Rose Township. Usually we don’t see anyone over there, but since the day was so beautiful we saw quite a few people walking in the woods.
Really mom? You want me to SIT??!
That’s OK, Mom just asked me to sit and watch her while other people and their dogs went by, so I did. Apparently mom and I are very slow walkers.
This is a very scary horse dung bucket. I barked at it a lot.
We went up and down some hills in the woods and I wasn’t scared at all about being under the trees! I guess that’s because it wasn’t windy and nothing weird was blowing around. You know, like leaves and stuff.
Hey Mom! I jumped over the rock, you got that on film, right?
Then we walked beside a couple of pretty ponds. Mom was using a compass on her phone to check out where Southeast is in relation to the bridges we were standing on.
Sure is pretty around here!
Apparently the Milky Way core is visible again and at this time of the year, the SE is where to find it.
Whatever, mom.
On the way back to the car she let me pick which trail to follow. She was sorta glad I picked the shorter one, especially after a fat tire bike went by and I got the zoomies.
This is me being crazy. Mom was not amused.
Mom says zoomies in the woods are not as fun as zoomies in the living room.
I beg to differ.
OK, I’ll be serious if I have to be. For a moment anyway.
A few days ago 3 other intrepid women photographers and I ventured forth to a new destination, Big Sable Lighthouse, at Ludington State Park.
The four of us plus puppy Wally walked out to the beach as the sun set.
We were, of course, looking for a dark place to shoot the Milky Way. We are all members of an online Milky Way photography class, though most of us had never met in person.
It was a beautiful pink and gold and navy evening.
We put this particular adventure together quickly, with a barrage of text messages flying between us, when we realized there was a clear night coming up. Then, the day before, someone did some research and messaged the group — “Do you know there’s a 2 mile walk out to the lighthouse?”
We’re headed up there.
Uhhhh, no, no we did not know that. This caused a bigger flurry of messaging and then someone finally just booked a campsite for us all at the park and we decided to go for it.
We had a beautiful night for our adventure, and the walk was shorter from the campground than from the lighthouse parking lot, only 1.5 miles through the woods and dunes. And of course 1.5 miles back in the dark, but underneath a star packed sky.
It’s a grand building, big enough to house 3 keeper’s families, back in the day.
Our biggest obstacle turned out not to be the getting there but the lights that surround the lighthouse. There is a big streetlight shining in front, and an obnoxiously orange light in back making the whole back of the lighthouse and most of the grounds glow neon.
Our first glimpse of the challenges that would be presented.
According to our apps the Milky Way, now pretty vertical, would be right alongside the tower about 10 p.m. We were convinced it would be a stunning shot.
Taken with my cell as we waited for dark skies.
If it weren’t for the orange light…and that big tree.
It became obvious to us as we waited that we weren’t going to get that dream image.
So we did the best we could with the lighthouse itself and then we spread out across the beach looking for other interesting things.
The Milky Way was up there, but faded out by all the light.
There was a gentle breeze sweeping away the bugs and the stars were hanging above us and no one was in any kind of hurry to leave.
Even down closer to the lakeshore the light was overpowering.
When we finally did begin to pack up around midnight I noticed my backpack was pretty wet from condensation. I began to realize the trouble I had had focusing on the stars, or anything for that matter, might have been because I had condensation on my lens.
I walked way out into the dunes and shot out over Lake Michigan. That’s a fishing boat down near the bottom left.
Condensation which would have been eliminated if I had put my lens heater on the camera at the start. The lens heater I bought the week before and lugged 1.5 miles out to the beach, but left in my backpack.
Sometimes you just have to go right up to your target.
Yep. One more lesson in a whole list of lessons I’ve learned on this Milky Way journey.
Another lesson – when you’re focused in one direction don’t forget to turn and look the other way once in awhile.
As a side note, there’s been quite a bit of death tangent to my life this past week. Not people directly tied to me, exactly, but people important to people important to me. I guess the heavens gained a few more stars.
A few more stars twinkle this week.
Late that night while listening to the lake murmur and wandering the dunes, watching the Milky Way slide across the sky I noted the newcomers.
And then we all walked back to camp under the umbrella of the starry night, content in our imperfect images, happy that we went, ready to do it again the next clear, moonless night.
After the bagpipe parade my sister and I began to prepare for a night trek through the cedar forest and along the sandy beach out to the end of Sunset Point. The wind was picking up and we were worried that waves we heard crashing somewhere out in the lake would be washing over the point.
At 11 p.m. we decided to head out there and check it out for ourselves. There was a certain amount of anxiety as we wound our way through the woods and along the beach, but we were relieved to find there were no waves anywhere near the point and we were able to set up on a picnic table out on the point with a perfect view of both the Milky Way to the southwest and the Big Dipper to the north.
I lightened these somewhat for Facebook, but you’ll still want to look at them in a dark room if you can, and on a larger screen.
My first composition included more of the water in the bay. The light on shore is someone with a flashlight, probably also out looking at the meteor shower.
She sat in a chair and watched the northern sky, exclaiming in excitment every time she saw a meteor streak across the sky. I focused on the Milky Way, deciding to include some of the bay in my first set of images, and then moving slightly to the left to include all the trees in the next series of shots.
I like this composition too, with more of the trees we walked through to get out to the point included.
But she was seeing so many streaking meteors that I decided to turn my camera around and see what happened. I liked the rocky point jutting out into the dark lake.
I was lucky enough to get the meteor in the shot – barely.
And then I asked her to go sit on a rock at the edge of the gravel, still many yards away from the water, and sit very still for 20 seconds while I took a shot of her watching the sky.
The green might be air glow, or it might be northern lights. There was some pink in the sky too.
I love this shot so much. The image looks peaceful, but in actuality the wind and wave noise was so loud I had to signal when the shot was finished by flashing a light at her.
Then we realized I could set up the camera and she could push the remote shutter release while I sat on the rock watching the sky.
Such a perfect place to star gaze.
This was sooooo cool, to sit out at the end of a rocky peninsula and look at the stars. In this image I think there are 3 meteors, though at the time I didn’t see any of them.
My sister had been watching part of the Milky Way which was directly overhead and she asked if I’d take a picture of that, so I pointed the camera straight up and pressed the shutter release.
Uh oh, clouds have invaded.
But when we looked at what we had we realized the clouds had suddenly moved in. Our night of shooting stars was over. Our window of opportunity had been less than 2 hours. I was very glad we went out there a bit earlier than we had planned. I was happy with what we had captured and we hoofed it back down the point, across the beach and through the woods to our waiting car.
Back in camp, snug in my tent, I scrolled through my images on the back of my camera. I couldn’t see much detail in the small screen, but I knew it was there. I was smiling so big it was hard to go to sleep.
During our exploration walk out to the point earlier in the day.
I don’t know if I would have gone out that night, given the roar of the lake and the gusty wind, if my sister hadn’t been with me. Thanks to her we had a magical couple of hours, and now you get to share in it too!
Hmmmmm…I seem to have gotten off blog topic. I was supposed to show you the rest of my two nights of camping up in the Upper Peninsula. The intent of that trip was to take another crack at capturing the Milky Way. But as you know, there are only a few hours a night, and a few nights every month, when the Milky Way is best photographed and weather doesn’t always cooperate.
Don’t worry, it got better later on in my stay.
When I left you last I was setting up camp during a torrential rain storm. There was so much water surrounding my tent, and a huge bubble of water under the tent that I decided to just drive away and go exploring. I figured I’d sleep in the car the first night and let things dry out.
It’s a beautiful part of my state!
I drove down the Garden Peninsula toward my planned destination of Fayette State Park which houses historical buildings.
You know I can’t resist an old barn.
The Garden Peninsula is beautiful in it’s own right, full of scenic pastures and barns. Truthfully if this was all I saw over the weekend I’d be happy enough.
Red barns and wheat are good too.
But I was curious about the historical buildings. Would they make a fantastic foreground for a Milky Way shot?
The light was wonderful.
I arrived at Fayette State Park late in the afternoon when the sun was lowering and making the cliffs glow.
The buildings looked beautiful in the golden light. I tried to figure out which way was south, knowing that the Milky Way would rise from that direction later in the evening.
The building in front wasn’t square, it was so interesting.
Mostly I just enjoyed shooting the buildings in the soft light and imagining what life was like back in the day.
One of the buildings that had smelted metal.
And then I began to wait in my car in the parking lot for it to get dark. Gradually the other visitors left. And as they left clouds began to roll in. Soon enough it was clear that there would be no stars that night. Plus I was beginning to feel creepy about being there alone.
Is someone watching me?
So I drove back to my damp camp and worked at getting the puddle out from under my tent, then I went to sleep to dream about stars for the rest of the night.
The next day I visited Seney Wildlife Refuge, not as early as I’d hoped, but still morning. Almost immediately I saw this loon family snoozing.
Expand this image to see the sleeping family.
They were a long way from me and even my zoom lens didn’t get them really close enough, but it was cool to see all four of them, mom, dad and the two little ones resting after breakfast.
Then I realized that the milkweed, which was growing everywhere, was covered in monarch butterflies.
You can almost smell the sweet milkweed.
I had so much fun stalking butterflies, trying to get that iconic monarch image. They moved a lot, but at least they were closer to me than the loon family!
Mama duck and her baby.
Eventually I moved on and found a couple of swans…
Notice the clear skies. Will there be stars tonight?
…and a Canadian goose family with teenagers.
Mom, Dad and four teens.
Still, I wished I could have gotten a good photo of the loons. And then I rounded a corner and there was another family of loons, focused on breakfast, much closer to the road.
Num, num, num.
I parked so fast and quietly got out of the car. I didn’t even close the door. The car was parked in the middle of the road with the door open and I didn’t even care.
The happy couple.
I was so happy to get some closeups of this beautiful couple. Their youngster, an independent singleton, was swimming and eating on his own quite a ways from mom and dad. He was not so easily photographed.
The teen, maintaining his distance.
But I got quite a few nice images of the adults. They made my day. I felt that regardless of what the weather did to my star hopes I was happy with the trip just because I’d been able to watch the loons.
Isn’t he beautiful?
Then, not to far from the end of the refuge road I came across a dead tree. I could see something hoping around in the branches so I stopped, once again in the middle of the road with the door open.
Turns out there was a single elusive cedar waxwing, who managed to always have his head turned away from me…
Hey there, the camera’s over here.
…and a king bird who never sat still long enough to get a clear photo.
Too busy hunting lunch to wait around for me.
I stayed there a long time but never did get any better images of either of them. And then I headed back to camp to wait for it to get dark again. I took a nap and considered where I was going to go if there were stars.
It turned out to be a nice site, wider than others and with shade.
I couldn’t talk myself into driving the 14 miles back down the Garden Peninsula, I felt like I needed someone to go with me if I was going to hang around historic buildings in the middle of the night. So I just went out to the boardwalk a couple miles away and shot straight out over Lake Michigan.
There was lake fog and a few clouds near the horizon.
Nothing exciting in the foreground, and a stupid big ole streetlight behind me (but that did light up the grass in a kind of cool way) and not anything like what I’d hoped for. But the lake was gently lapping the shore and the air was warm and the stars were shining.
So I was happy.
Letting a little bit of the lighthouse beam into the shot.
And I have a couple of people that are interested in going back there sometime to shoot at Fayette State Park. I’ll contact the park rangers first and make sure we’ll be allowed to be there after hours, and we’ll scope out just where to stand to get the sky and a building in the shot.
No, not that kind of struggle…the struggle to capture the night sky image I have in my head. Sometimes I think I should just get another head.
See that shadow hump in the foreground? That’s me hunkered down behind the camera, due to my neighbors GIGANTIC light hanging over her garage. Sigh.And the lights on the right are from my house.
This week we finally had a clear night. I swear, we hadn’t seen the sun in weeks here in Michigan, but one day this week the sun graced us with her presence and I excitedly watched the weather guy to see if we were going to keep those clear skies overnight.
Well…sort of…but it was the best we’d had in forever, so I figured I’d run over to a local park where I thought the skies would be darker than Katie’s park here in town. I was going to go over around 9 p.m., figuring it would be true dark by then. But I’m older now and was already yawning at 8. And it looked pretty darn dark to me even that early.
I moved, so it’s somewhat better. And you can see a couple stars if you look carefully, so it’s all good.
So off I went, camera on the tripod, settings already entered. Remote shutter thingy attached. Extra batteries in my pocket. Handwarmer in there too. It was 17F out there.
As I drove the few miles to the park I didn’t see another car. Good. I don’t really want anyone to know I’m at the park after dark. I just want to grab a few practice shots and get out of there and back to my nice warm house.
But just as I got to the park entrance, beginning my turn in off a narrow country road, a car came up over the hill from the other direction, bright lights glaring. We both stopped for a moment, and then I continued on, not wanting them to see me pull into the park. I drove about half a mile away, turned around at the next road and went back.
WordPress always shows images darker than I’ve edited them. Lots of light over there.Plus some clouds moving in.
All was still. I texted my husband that I was there, and was reaching for my camera when a car, possibly the same car, pulled into the parking lot and parked at the other end.
Well. I’m not getting out of my car. In fact I locked the doors and waited a few minutes. I’m pretty sure they were doing the same thing. I couldn’t think of one good reason for anyone to be out there long after dark unless, of course, they too wanted to shoot the stars. And what were the odds of that?
So I backed up, shot out of the parking lot, and went home. I think I was gone all of 20 minutes. I was so frustrated I decided to at least take a picture of the tree in our yard, still decked out in lights. I figured the camera was on the tripod, might as well get something.
When I walked into the house husband said something like ‘That didn’t take long.” and I explained the story, and he said he’d go back out with me in a little bit.
Lots of light looking behind me too.
So we did. I felt much happier sitting out on the pier knowing he was in the car just behind me. I got a few images…but there was lots more light out there than I anticipated in a Bortle 4, I think I was shooting over the next small town. I need to go further away.
Still it was fun trying to remember all the things I needed to do to get the stars. I struggled with my tripod a whole lot too. Good things to practice before the Milky Way is back up. I really want that shot that’s in my head
There were a LOT of planes that night.
Today I tried stacking a series of 10 images from that night. That’s supposed to take things that aren’t consistent between the images out and improve the noise level in the results. I think I need to figure something out, because this is what I got.
9 images of the airplane at 8 seconds each. Sigh. And another little one down near the horizon too.
Ah well, my classmates will help me with that…and meanwhile I had a midwinter adventure close to home and have another story to tell!
PS: I think you need to be looking at these images when you’re sitting in a dark room with no glare. 🙂
Change Is Hard 