Night Moves...

Bob Seger's Night Moves is one of my oldy favorite songs.

So the past few days with the 'new' moon phase arriving, I've been spending quite a few nights trying to 'catch' star trails and the Milky Way.

That meant spending some time in the tent so I could just pop out of the flap and see the night sky. That did not worked out well since I missed that night sky but got to see some amazing Saturday morning fog and the Crescent Moon over the Meadow.

I decided to try it again on Saturday night.

I went out to the camp with the intention of seeing the night sky appear and getting some amazing shots.

Hmmm. That didn't happen either. The dogs and I spent a little bit of time out at the 'camp'. It was hot and sticky, but I thought it would be nicer at the campsite. It usually is.

But.
It wasn't.

It was horrible. I could handle the humidity and the heat, but I couldn't handle the mosquitoes! There were hoards of them!

It was so bad that when Hannah came up to me, she had mosquitoes all over her nose and face. I abandoned the 'camp' and headed home to the 'safety' of the house.

At home there was a very slight breeze from the southwest that hadn't been drifting through the trees. I decided to try going out much later and seeing if I'd get eaten alive.

Thankfully, I wasn't!

I experiment quite a bit when 'shooting' the stars and the night sky. I really wanted just to get the Big Dipper the first night.

I got part of the Big Dipper along with a bit of clouds and even a firefly squiggly.

So I tried another shot with a longer time of exposure. The clouds moved through and again and there were more firefly squiggles.

I thought, okay, now I've done that, now I need to try the Milky Way. 

The first shot is turned to black and white. This was the night that had a few clouds. The clouds were an odd color as well as the Milky Way. Everything had a weird green tint.

[I am still trying to learn why I get the odd colors, is it stray light from a town 3 miles away or is my color balance just really awful. I need to study that some more. Sometimes I do a great job and at others? I suck.]

I quit after an hour or so of trying to get a proper shot. 

Oddly enough, I wasn't bothered by the hoards of blood sucking mosquitoes.

So I went back to the old standby of doing another Star Trail. If I were a true Astro photographer, I'd seek out a wonderful exotic place and position the Milky Way over a barn or some other scenic place. But I am not that good at it, so I spend my dark summer nights practicing over and over again in my own yard. 

Travelling to another location seems to be frivolous for me since I am still learning.

Plus--> I have pretty good dark skies in my hollow.

I really like this Star Trail shot. There are little tiny streaks of green in the sky from the Fireflies flying above the camera. By this time, the clouds had moved away. 

So maybe I was getting just a bit better with the star trails and I still sucked big time with the Milky Way. [That just means I can practice more late at night!]

I'm not one to give up. The next night was supposed to be clear. Just as the stars came out, I decided to try for the Big Dipper once more. In the shot below, I can see where it is...just barely. 

Our little house is right below the Dipper. I rather liked the blue in the night sky in the early evening.

I tried again when it got a bit darker and cropped the photo. 

Now I can see the Big Dipper. 

Mission accomplished!

I wanted to try another star trail so I set it up. 

It wasn't exactly where I wanted it to be, but I decided to just go with it. 

There is something about the streaks of stars that appeal to me. 

The night sky is

so incredible even in a boring setting.

 

Failures of the Milky Way:

Maybe one day I will be successful. I have really good luck sometimes and really poor luck other times.

I wonder sometimes if it is light reflection from far off and if humidity has an affect on how the camera sees the night sky and the Milky Way.

In my head, I was photographing this instead. 
[sky swapped--> which I don't believe in doing. I want to truly do this proper!]

😢

I keep studying and learning, that is what feeds my curiosity. Eventually, I'd love to say that I've done a shot just like the one above on my own.

I can adjust my white balance more to a lower Kelvin temperature [I know this doesn't make sense to others but apparently the right temperature should be somewhere between 3600-3800 for a pleasing bluish night sky.
I've looked at a filter that is supposed to cut light pollution, but not sure I want to drop $ into something that is more of a hobby for sleepless nights.

I think I'll watch some instructive videos for my particular camera to see if I can improve my star photos.

It would be a good choice today with temps outdoors that are rising to 95 this afternoon.

I could go out this evening and try some more skies. After all the sky will be dark.

It would also be a great day for a nap and reading a mystery.

After all, a year ago, I got pretty close to what I felt was satisfactory.

[View from the porch]