... as agreed upon, i awoke at two o'clock in the morning to check my email for john's "go/no-go" message ... getting up at this hour was an achievement of sorts, since during the day erik and i had done a 230 mile wanderabout to moosehead lake, round-tripping through jackman-greenville-newport ... a great trip, but the high temperature made the ride a bit more exhausting than usual ... anyhow, john's email said, "clear skies, it's a go," so i quick-showered while the coffee brewed, grabbed my bag of gear, and was down the stairs with fully a minute to wait before he arrived ...
... okay, to the chase scene (i know you're holding your breath, chad) ...
[REMEMBER, YOU CAN CLICK ON A PICTURE TO SEE IT FULL SIZED]
... yes, i know, "where's the milky way" ... high humidity in the atmosphere, a thin layer of clouds, and, even at four in the morning, far more pre-dawn light than i'd anticipated, the milky way was not visible as a band of light across the heavens ... however, john, he who is in the planetarium business, assured me that this was, indeed, the milky way ... it was kind of like flying over new york city when a dense fog is obscuring all but the tops of the tallest of skyscrapers, and a native of the city sitting next to you says, "how can you not see it, it's right there" ...
... actually, i learned a lot this morning ... if i take the original .nef raw file and zoom in there are hundreds of stars visible ... truthfully, i was stunned at how many i could find, far more than were visible to my unaided eye ... most of the stars are only one or two pixels across, which means my sigma 10-20mm is accurately focused at infinity ... also, this little experiment demonstrates clearly that the dynamic range of the d7000's sensor is well suited for this sort of photography ... looking at the image i captured, i'm excited for the next outing ...
... bugs eating us alive, from atop cape cod hill i enjoyed the view of the western mountains ...
... it was so dark when i took these images that i was impossible to see the field in front of me ... that's mt. blue in the distance ...
... john held very still during my ten second exposure ... again, demonstrating the capability of modern digital sensor technology, as i took this picture the scene was so dark to my eyes that all i could see of john was the illumination from his camera's lcd display ...
... we wandered over to belgrade on the way home to see if we could catch a bit of the sunrise from blueberry hill ...
... breakfast in oakland, then john was off to work and i took a little nap ...
... what a wonderful morning ...