Of Sunsets and Stars

I'm a very lucky person.

I have a young neighbor gal who is the same age as my youngest son.  We share a garden together and her children come often to visit.

Yesterday we worked in the garden picking produce and dividing it up between households.

We talked while we worked and two of her children played in the Sunflower Maze while we gardened.

Hubby and the oldest daughter practiced gun safety and A. brought her new BB gun down.  Hubby and A. spent a long time shooting and going over how to safely handle her BB gun.
I think it was a wonderful morning all the way around.

Hubby is actually very good with children and has some incredible patience!

We decided to go to the ridge top just after sunset and see if we could catch some of the meteor shower.

I said the sky would be best just after sunset and before the moon got too bright.

We enjoyed sky watching.  My neighbor brought her three children, the youngest fell asleep in the large 3 wheeled stroller.
Their dog Manny and their cat Midnight also came along.

When the moon... not full anymore rose, it was a magnificent orange color and we all ooooed and ahhhed over it.

No, it isn't the 'best' shot, but you get the idea.  This whole night shooting with cameras is pretty new to me.

We waited until the stars came out...

I discovered that indeed a 25 second exposure is much better than a longer one.  The earth rotates so the stars will blur if exposed 30 seconds as this shot nearly did.

This was an 80 second exposure and it is noisy and the stars are beginning to leave 'trails'.  Still, it was fun to experiment.

We saw several meteors and some very dim ones and some bright ones.

At 10pm we called it quits as the moon was very bright and the stars were dimming in the sky.

I hope we get to try this again tonight!