Author Archives: Thor

12.2 Pre-Prairie Portrait

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I can feel the end of this trip coming on.  As I prepare to leave the Black Hills and return to the prairie, I am eager to see the results of my various photographic efforts.  I think about all of the exposures I have made, each of them an experiment whose results won’t be known until I return home.  I hope my notes, made in the dark, are adequate and will match up with the film images to let me know what worked and what didn’t.  As my biologist grandfather explained to me in my student years, “there is no such thing as a failed experiment, except one that you don’t learn from.”

I’ve enjoyed the chance encounters with the people I have met everywhere along my route.  This morning it was a scoutmaster at the campground water source, monitoring a group of tenderfoots practicing shaving skills with empty razors.  I don’t remember a grooming merit badge, but it made perfect sense here in this wilderness setting to give these boys an excuse to use the tools they will eventually need to avoid a hirsute future.

I have had some great experiences. In the last weeks I have gotten quite close to the ideal of an astrophoto safari—traveling to new sites, shooting the sky and moving on.  If my schedule were open-ended, I’d stay at each place until I had a night of perfect weather.  Instead, I must move on to my next destination, content to capture whatever happens to be there when I am there.

But I can’t complain about the weather; I’ve had a great run of clear nights.  I also now have a list of places to return to and explore some more.  Sylvan Lake in particular would be a great destination for a different style of outing that would take advantage of the lodge, trails, beautiful trees and scenery.

Contemplating the end of the journey, and before leaving the beautiful pine forest, I thought it might be appropriate to make a self-portrait.  It’s an awkward undertaking for me, a violation of my Scandinavian values of maintaining a sense of modesty, and against acts of hubris, so I am hesitant.  (How can you tell an extroverted engineer?  He’s the one looking at your shoes). 

So to do this, I must find an isolated location off the trail to set up a camera, use its self-timer, then pose in front of it.  Perhaps to avoid being the center of attention, and to give credit to all the supporting actors in a production, I arrange my other cameras and tripods around me.  They have been trusty accomplices in this adventure and accompany me in this self-portrait.  In the harsh late morning light, it’s not a great shot, but I don’t claim any skill as a portrait photographer.

From left to right:  Nikomat FTn with 20mm f/4 on Manfrotto 3443 CarbonOne, Pentax 6×7 with 55mm f/3.5 on Bogen/Manfrotto (unmarked model, but my first truly solid tripod), the author (a biped), Olympus OM2 with 24mm, f/2.8 on Manfrotto Junior 3405.

Nightscape Odyssey
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12 The Long Way Home

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12.1 Sylvan Lake Secret

Maybe it’s not a secret, but I had no knowledge of where it could be.  All I had was a picture on a corporate report recently published in our new millennium of internet services, depicting a person in an idyllic setting, casually working on a laptop, connected with the world, but in the isolation and beauty of a pristine lake cradled by a smooth rock palisade.

Where was this?  A clue from the report came from its cover description, identifying the subject as a member of a climbing school in South Dakota.  I made a guess that it was in the Black Hills and when I found myself in the area once again, I decided to make some inquiries.  Maybe I could find the climbing school and ask where the photo was shot.  Like the detective showing a picture of the victim to every store clerk and bartender, I asked if anyone knew the climbing school or recognized the scene from my report cover.

I never located the climbing school, but it was unnecessary since it wasn’t long until I encountered someone who recognized the scene.  In fact, it was the first person I showed it to, because everyone in the area was familiar with it:  a resort and retreat tucked away in the Black Hills at Sylvan Lake.

The corporate report cover depicting a scene I wanted to find.  I carried it with me, showed it to strangers, and gathered notes trying to identify it.  

I drove the “Needles Highway”, aptly named for the vertical fingers of rock surrounding the delicately winding road.  It led me to my subject, which I found to be just as it was portrayed in the photo:  a beautiful lake surrounded by photogenic rocks and trees.  A hotel/lodge nestles in the scene, its Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired stylings a perfect match for the setting.  The accommodations, even if available, would exceed my budget. Fortunately, there was a campground also embedded in the forest; I think I got the last site.

There had been a big rainstorm and the ground was soaked, but the clouds seemed to be clearing, so I set up camp and “napped” for a few hours.  It was still cloudy when I gave up napping, but I could reconnoiter the lake and look for potential sky and lake photo opportunities.  A footpath circumscribed the lake.  I was unable to identify exactly the location of the report cover photo, but there were numerous possible arrangements of boulders and backdrops that could have been the original scene. 

By the time it was dark, the sky had mostly cleared, a few high cirrus clouds remaining.  I would not be doing any telescope work tonight, but I set up my cameras hoping for a nice startrail composition.  A sodium lamp at the south end of the lake prohibited that north-viewing position, but I was able to find another location that provided both a west and a north view.  But this lake is too close to civilization; there are light domes from nearby towns, traffic on the roads, nighttime hikers, and even another party of midnight swimmers!  Although there was more human activity than I would like, it was nice to be back at a location where the predators are not larger than I am.

As I waited for the human activity to decline while the camera shutters were open, I thought back to someone I’d met on my hike earlier that day.  Phillip, a young man from Montreal, an out of work actor, had taken a bus here and was bicycling the South Dakota-Wyoming area.  He was researching Native American history for a play he is writing (so that he can have work again by acting in it).  It was a brief and enjoyable encounter between two individuals taking inspiration from outdoor experiences, our paths crossing at this formerly secret location.

Nighttime activities on Sylvan Lake illuminate its northern shore.  

Nightscape Odyssey
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11.3 Monumental Lockout

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Well, it finally happened.  I locked myself out of the car.

Fortunately, it happened near civilization, at the Devils Tower visitor center.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t help me.

Fortunately, the “road unit” ranger could.  This happens periodically and the park rangers deal with it.

Unfortunately, the road unit ranger was unavailable, in a meeting.  They were short-handed—other units had been called out for forest fire work.

Fortunately, the meeting would be over in about an hour.  I took the opportunity to hike around the tower.

Unfortunately, when the ranger arrived, he didn’t have the lockout toolkit.

Fortunately, he knew who had it.

Unfortunately, there would be a delay while his partner arrived.  I watched parties of climbers ascending the tower.

Fortunately, the other ranger arrived in fifteen minutes and had the tools.

Fortunately, they worked!

I was embarrassed by this episode.  I once was unsympathetic to such stories, but I will never make condescending remarks about these things again.  I felt like the Norwegian who had locked his keys in the car.  It took him nearly half a day to get his family out.

A half day had passed for me and now, through the help of park rangers and their preparation for this semi-rare event, I could continue my travels.

My minivan, with its two rooftop cargo carriers spends an extra few hours at the Devils Tower visitor center, a consequence of its absent-minded owner.

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11.2 Devils Tower in an Hour

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At the entrance to the National Monument there was a one-hour photo lab, an incongruous business next to the tourist-pandering souvenir store.  I was surprised to find it there, but evidently there were enough tourist snapshots to support it, so I was pleased to take advantage of its services.  I brought in my roll of LE400; it had the one single shot that I took last night when the clouds broke.  I was hoping to find out if the exposure was going to be usable or if I should plan on spending another night to try again.

The photo lab was run by two women who were distinctly unexcited to see me– a scruffy long-haired guy who had been out camping the last couple days– coming in with a single film cassette.  One of them started to make fun of me because I told her there was only one exposure on the roll.  She must have thought I was nuts.

Well, since it was a one-hour photo lab, I came back an hour later and I encountered a completely different response.  She was effusive in expressing how excited she was and asked “How did you ever take this picture?”  She wanted to know if she could have a print?, could she show people?, how did I?, where did I?…

So this one picture, an orphan on a full roll of otherwise empty film had completely changed her attitude toward me.  I was now a rock star, and she wanted me to sign a copy of my latest hit, and so I did.  She placed it prominently among her portfolio of prints promoting her one-hour photo lab in this remote and most unexpected place.

An hour in the shadow of Devils Tower, and an hour at an incongruous photo lab.

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11 Devils Tower

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My map-reading and reconnaissance led me to this viewpoint.  The clouds are building up; I am not optimistic for the night.

11.1  Return to the Prairie

After summitting the Shelley Canyon route into the Bighorns, my long-suffering Dodge Caravan had an easier time negotiating the route through the high alpine forest.  It had an even easier time descending the thousands of feet back to the prairie, the long sweeping switchbacks delivering an expansive view of the plains.

The ruptured aneurysm of the radiator hose had forced a change in plans and I had to spend the night in a hotel in Sheridan.  I was now on my way to Devils Tower, a favorite destination of bikers and aliens.  My radiator was full, I was rested and clean, but the sky was filling with clouds of the type that don’t dissipate after sunset.

Devils Tower is an anomaly in the prairie landscape of eastern Wyoming, a hard igneous intrusion into the otherwise soft ancient ocean bed.  It refuses to erode away, like the surrounding sedimentary shale, leaving a defiant finger of columnar basalt.  The obstinate feature was an obvious choice to become the country’s first national monument.

By the time I arrived the sky had nearly filled with clouds.  It looked like I would get another full night of sleep, but I did my reconnaissance, finding the due-south line from the monument so that I could position it in my imagined composition.  It crossed a service road, prohibited to public traffic, but otherwise a great viewpoint.  Trying to pre-empt the afterhours security check, I found the park official in charge and requested permission to shoot pictures after dark.  It was granted, but it looked like the permit would be unused, the sky was completely overcast.  After making camp, it looked like I would have some time on my hands.

So far, I’ve been too busy to become lonely.  Now, with nothing pressing to attend to, I am left alone with my thoughts, which eventually become thoughts of how it would be nice to have some company.  But what companion would tolerate the stuff I do while trying to get a picture?  Napping in the car in parking lots, driving down every nook and cranny of a back road trying to find “the place”, putting off food and sleep, having no arrangements for the night’s accommodations, changing my plans on each new piece of information or state of mind, no itinerary, just some vague notion of photogenic destinations and staying under clear skies.  These are the things that a traveling companion would have to deal with.  Who would possibly want to, along with other challenges, not listed?  This hobby, or at least my version of it, seems destined to be a solo activity.

By dusk, the clouds were still dominating the sky, but an occasional hole in them has encouraged me to prepare for the possibility of clearing.  Not being sleep-deprived re-enabled my optimism.  Returning to the service road and piecing together the star clues revealed through the cloud openings, I finally identified Polaris, the focal point of my planned shots.  I setup my tripods and cameras and waited for the sky to fully clear.

Eventually, it did!  I opened the shutters and hoped for it to remain clear.  I am a slave to the capricious skies.  The clearing lasted a little more than an hour; I hoped it was long enough to get a satisfying star trail image.

Nightscape Odyssey
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10.4 On Beyond Greybull

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I was on the road again, an unlikely happening after the lunchtime setback in Cody.  But the road through the open range had taken me to Greybull and beyond, and my car was functioning once again in what passes for its normal performance.

The weather was becoming murky.  Clouds were building up, the haze keeping me from seeing across the valleys.  I can see there’s a mountain range or hills coming up, but they’re very faint through the translucent air.  And the sky is gradually shifting whiter from its normal deep blue.  My luck in keeping within the territory of clear skies is about to change.

And maybe my radiator and cooling problems aren’t solved after all.  For the second time in this day, I find myself climbing up steep mountain roads, in this case Shell Canyon.  My temperature gauge is going crazy, pushing way up to the redline hot end of the range, and the power in my car is diminishing, so I’ve turned off the air conditioner and turned on the heater, following the advice of the woman at the Cody jail.  I thought back to her now and wondered what other stories her young life had.  I’m sure they were fascinating, but whatever new stories her life would hold, I wished her the best.  Funny, the impact of a momentary encounter with a stranger.

I pull over to the side hoping that this will let the engine cool down a bit (I do NOT turn the engine off, with my new knowledge that I gotta keep pumping coolant).  And I wonder what it means when the heater is turned on full-blast, but the air coming out of the vents is not very warm?  The temperature gauge runs hot and cold as I maneuver up the canyon, stopping and starting, pausing and proceeding, always up, up into the Bighorn Mountains.


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10.3 Now You’re Talkin’

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Enough time had elapsed that my engine could cope with the short drive to the service station, even with a disabled cooling system.  It continued to hemorrhage green fluid however, even as I parked in the garage’s driveway.  I walked into the noisy shop, avoiding the hoses running across the floor that powered various air tools and welding equipment.  At a break in the sound level, I caught the attention of a mechanic, a young man in a jumpsuit, his hands wrapped around a troublesome oil filter.  He stopped his project and came over to hear me.

Knowing I am not fluent in the language of cars and their ailments (a specialized branch of linguistics similar to health-care and medicine), I did my best to explain my situation.

“Well my car is barely running and there’s green fluid everywhere.  It was working fine until I started out after lunch, and—“

He interrupted my auto-illiterate description of symptoms and sequence,  “Hold on a minute.  Is your car here?” 

“Yes, it’s out front.” 

“Ok, so what led up to this?  Did the car overheat?”  He walked with me out to the driveway.

“No, not that I know of.  Everything was fine when I stopped for lunch at the Irma; I’d been driving fine for miles before then.  I’ve been traveling over the last few weeks and today I came into town from the west, over Chief Joseph Pass— “

“Now you’re talkin’!”  An apparent understanding of the situation interrupted my story.  “Let’s see what we have here.”

His reassuring manner and friendly encouragement accompanied us as we got to my car and inspected the confusing condition under the hood.  He rapidly diagnosed the broken radiator hose and showed me where it had burst. 

“So why would it burst after lunch instead of before?”  This didn’t make sense to me.

He explained that when I shut off the car, the cooling system stops circulating, and without a way for the heat to get out, the engine temperature builds up.  When restarted a short time later, the sudden excess load on the cooling system caused the hose to burst.  This sounded plausible to my uninformed logic, and I turned my attention to how it could be repaired.  Would I be back on the road today, or later this week?

I left it with him after he explained he would need to identify the part and see if they had a replacement.  I should check back in 20 or 30 minutes.  I looked around to see how I could kill half an hour, which I did at the neighboring hotel and gift shop, returning to find the car in its same spot!  Did anything happen?  I checked with the garage office (the convenience store) and was informed, “Oh yes, it’s all done.  The bill is thirty dollars, here’s the key.”

I was stunned.  Full and immediate recovery from an automotive disaster for the cost-equivalent of a tank of gas?  I found the mechanic and tipped him in appreciation for interrupting his work to attend to my cause.  Because of the hospitality and kindness of the people in Cody Wyoming, I’m on my way to the next town, Greybull.  And from there to the Bighorns, and if I get to stay in the Bighorns tonight, it will be because of the western courtesy given to strangers in distress.


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10.2 The Cody Law Enforcement Center

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The Law Enforcement Center was the equivalent of a police station, fire station, sheriff’s office, dispatch center and local jail, all combined and conveniently located in this single large and fairly new building, kind of a “Police Central”.  I found the entrance, but there was a security airlock.  I was in a small glass vestibule with two items in it: a phone and a bench.  Sitting on the bench was a twenty-something woman, pregnant to within days if not hours of someone’s new birthday. The inner door was locked, and I would need to call someone to let me in.  I lifted the phone and dialed 0, wondering why this apartment-building style security was needed at a police station.  The voice at the other end responded in what seemed a rather urgent tone.  I wasn’t sure how to answer, so I started to blurt out my story, but I hadn’t really assembled it properly in my mind yet, and so only scrambled pieces of it came out my mouth.  Nevertheless, a buzzer sounded, and I opened the inner door.  The woman grabbed her things and slipped in behind me.

There was no front desk or reception area, but I found a person behind a security window.  I started to explain my story again, but was immediately waved off and directed to wait.   Outside, there seemed to be sirens sounding, and I caught a glimpse of a firetruck driving past.  Inside, there was a nice waiting area where I found that the woman had already settled in.  I became curious about this attractive near-mom, and to make small-talk for an uncertain wait, sympathized with her for being so pregnant at this hot time of year, how much longer did she have?

“My due-date is in six days.”

Her calm voice, tinted with the gentle accent of this western region confirmed my estimate of her condition.  Having heard me attempt to explain my situation twice now, she offered some advice.

“My car overheats all the time.  I turn the heat on full blast.  That way the engine doesn’t keep all the heat.”

“But doesn’t it get too hot for you?”

“Oh, yeah”, she laughed, “you gotta roll the windows down!  But in the summer, they’re down anyway- I don’t have any air conditioning.”

I imagined a car even older than mine, possibly equipped with air conditioning originally, but long since rendered inoperative.  An unglamorous rust-splotched car that provided basic transportation at the expense of gas and oil consumed, and noisily exhaled, by a strapped-on replacement muffler.  Yes, I had owned a car like this in earlier times.  As another siren-equipped vehicle drove by outside, I wondered why this woman, owner of the ancient car in my mind, was in the same waiting room with me, waiting in the Law Enforcement Center.

“So why are you here today?”

“Oh, my boyfriend is in the jail here, but he’s being transferred to a jail in his home state, and I need to talk to him.”

The lyrical accent expressed this in such a calm matter-of-fact way that it took me a moment for all of it to sink in.  A woman, nine-months pregnant, not officially admitted into the Law Enforcement Center, who wants to speak with her presumably-the-father boyfriend, who is currently in jail and scheduled to be taken under law enforcement security to another state.

 I’m not practiced in this particular social situation, so all I could do was ask “Where is his home state?”

“Missouri.”

Not that this was meaningful to me, but my preconception of Missouri law enforcement didn’t improve the image that was forming of her situation.

“Yeah, he’s being taken there tomorrow, and I need to talk to him about…,” a momentary hesitation,  “stuff.  Y’ know?”

I didn’t know, but I could imagine there would be plenty of stuff for her to figure out.  My predicament suddenly seemed like a minor annoyance, unimportant on a true life-scale of problems to solve.

The dispatcher behind the window called me over with a big friendly voice.  “Ok guy, how can I help you?  Just had to take care of a fire over at North Creek, kept me busy for a while, but it’s under control now– at least the call traffic is down.”

Fire, another problem way up there on the importance magnitude scale.  I felt like I was in the wrong place with my inappropriate silly situation.  Mine wasn’t a 911-type of problem, it should be a call to AAA.  But there I was, so I explained my situation and asked if he knew whether there was a service station open on a Sunday afternoon.

In spite of getting a few more calls related to the combat of the fire somewhere in Cody, the dispatcher looked up a service station that was open on Sundays, and even had a mechanic on duty.  He called to confirm it and advised them I would be coming, and then drew a map for me.  It was a dozen blocks away, I wondered if my car could limp that far, but as I left the building, I felt like this uncertainty was nothing, in view of what the other occupants of the Law Enforcement Center were facing that afternoon.


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10 Traversing Wyoming

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10.1  Chief Joseph’s Revenge

It had been a very satisfying night at the top of Beartooth Pass.  I had enjoyed the company of nearby curious campers, seen stars reflected in clear calm water, and I had even made some exposures of the deep sky.  The new day came sooner than I wanted and the other occupants of the makeshift campground behind the “Top of the World” store made their early starts as I struggled to stay asleep amid the noise of their departures.  When I finally climbed out of the tent onto the rock-strewn alpine tundra, I no longer had any company.  The half-dozen brave RVs that had bedded down here among the rocks with me were gone.  I packed up my stuff and followed suit.

The drive back down the pass was pleasant, the weather nice, traffic light.  My backtracking had not gone very far before I encountered the branch off this scenic route to Yellowstone onto the road across Wyoming.  On the map it looked easy enough, but I was aware that it went over a pass by the name of Chief Joseph, the famous Nez Perce leader.  The road was well designed, well paved, and I drove many casual miles before any hints of elevation gain.  The road was so well conditioned, that it took me a bit by surprise when it seemed that my trusty old minivan was making a little more effort to keep the pace.  The straight stretches of road became shorter, the curves more frequent, then suddenly they became continuous and steep, walls of rock preventing a view to the road ahead.  Traffic backed up behind me as my engine gasped for air and my hands clenched the wheel.   The shoulders on the road had vanished, replaced by tight guardrails on one side and a narrow rock-adorned gully on the other.  Scenic pullouts were impossible, there were no wide spots in this road.

Perhaps because of the limited view and my previous oblivion to what I was about to drive over, I had no sense of how far or how long it would be until I reached the top.  Each new set of curves and climbs seemed like it should be the last, but it was always immediately followed by another turn, and another set of switchbacks.  I could do nothing but keep climbing and try to enter that mental state of zen driving, mountain road style.

Eventually of course I did reach the top.  It was not an obvious single point in the road, because I continued to climb, but now there were occasional downhill curves to complement the uphill ones.  The uphills became less frequent, and now I was clearly on the other side.  Ah, the other side.  The other side, and riding the brake!  I switched into lower gears to avoid overheating the brakes and the poor minivan whined with the rpm.  Maybe I should use the brakes a little more and give the engine and transmission a rest. 

I was relieved when the road pitch evened out and I could see it entering the great basin ahead.  The blood returned to my knuckles as I commanded my fingers to release their death-grip on the wheel.  I coasted a little to celebrate the successful maneuver through Chief Joseph Pass.  I’m not sure I would agree that he “will fight no more forever”.

The morning had been spent in intense concentration on driving.  The road was again wide and smooth and easy.  The town of Cody was just ahead and I looked forward to stopping for lunch, perhaps at the famous, but aging Irma Hotel, a stopping place I remembered from family road trips.  I rolled into town, passing familiar landmarks:  the Plains Museum, which I knew included a section containing more guns than even a couple of 12-year old boys could take in, the rock shop, now closed, where my son had spent his allowance on prize specimens.  And the Irma, Wild Bill’s business interest in the early days of Cody.

I located a parking place across the street and eagerly found my way into the restaurant.  The food was unremarkable, and the service awful, but I’m not particular, this is just a refueling stop.  Besides, the furnishings are always intriguing- huge stuffed wild animal heads guarding over the massive cherrywood bar and the other artifacts on display from an earlier rustic era.  I take the moment to examine my roadmap and make some notes.  Eventually I run out of reasons to stay, the bill is paid, and I prepare myself for returning to what looks like a long dry road ahead.

I start up the car.  It runs rough for a moment and then dies.  I start it again, dance with the gas pedal, put it in gear to enter the traffic on main street, and the engine kills again.  What’s going on?  Ok, I’ll take all possible load off of it.  I turn off the AC, the fan, the radio.  This time I manage to get into the lane and start driving, but something is seriously wrong.  The engine threatens to die unless I pump the gas pedal.  The car lurches down the street and it’s obvious I’m not going to get very far, but I managed to turn off of Main Street onto a side street and into a parking lot.  I got out and discovered a blood trail behind the car, showing in a wide wet stripe on the road exactly how I had gotten to this point.  Under the hood it was a mess, with fluorescent green coolant everywhere.

I looked around.  I was in a bank parking lot.  (I think “how convenient, I was hoping to find a cash machine anyway.”)  There is another bank nearby, and across the street, a building marked “Law Enforcement Center”.  I’m not quite sure what this means, but it sounds like it might be a police station, and maybe someone there could help me figure out how to get my car repaired on a Sunday afternoon in a small town in the middle of Wyoming.


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9.7 An Astrophotographer in the Dark

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Mike eventually left me to the finicky procedure of finding the focus. It took another thirty minutes by the time I was satisfied. I had several targets I wanted to shoot this night, and the first one was M80 and M81, a pair of galaxies that could fit in a single view, faint swirls of light framed by the foreground stars of the Big Dipper. I attached the camera back, connected the cable release, started my timer, held my breath, and tripped the shutter. It was midnight, and I was catching my first photons!

I now had a moment to break from my equipment-demanded trance. From my position at the top of the boat ramp, I had a great view of the lake, its island silhouetted in the surround of the mirrored sky. At the shore I could make out my fixed camera tripods, a small indicator light showing the nearby battery packs powering the dew heaters that kept the lens clear from condensation. All of my film was now open to the sky, each exposed frame collecting the faint trickle of photons gathered by lenses and mirrors.

There was nothing for me to do! I gazed across the lake in a state of unexpected idleness. I wondered what my cameras at the lake were recording. I had intended to leave them open all night, but now that the lake surface was so calm, should I start over? I started to mentally compose other shots. I could reposition the cameras. Should I? Or should I do something else, like change the lens aperture? Or should I just re-shoot the scene with the exact same settings, trying to build insurance that one of the frames will turn out?

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