Wow

We reconned the area by day because we would be shooting from the top of steep cliffs with 300+ foot drop offs. It was a good thing. When we arrived out there the next morning at 3 am, in the pitch-black moonless dark, it was obvious that it would be easy to step off into the abyss (as some have done before).

And it's true, stumbling around in the very dark of wild places can be dicey at times. That's why I loved living out west, so many places to get away from the rest of the world. I've relocated back to New England my childhood homeplace, up in the mountain forests, and I still have the ability to do that but we haven't got the 'big sky' effect because there are so many trees... not complaining, I really missed the trees when I was out west. When I had access to the forests out there I became familiar with individual trees and spoke to them whenever I saw them.

Thanks for these amazing pictures, you're very talented with a camera!

What are the camera specs on that?

I shot the sky with 6-10 sec exposures f/1.8 at ISO 3200, and the foreground landscape at f/1.8 60 seconds. I merged about 12 images (IIRC), and post-processed in Lightroom, Photoshop, and Topaz.

Just today I bought the Starry Landscape Stacker app, so I plan to run some images through it as I learn the software over the next few weeks. I'm trying to polish up my night photography techniques so that I can do more night work at the fire lookout tower this coming summer.