Nightscape Odyssey

I had a picture in my mind's eye of a windmill in front of night sky startrails. But windmills, once a common, though neglected, artifact of an earlier technology, had become historical oddities. I realized this after looking for an intact specimen, not near any security or residence lights, and a reasonable distance from any road traffic. I wondered if any windmill that I could see from the road would ever meet these requirements. After hours and miles I realized I wasn't seeing any. Where were they? How could the very icon of rural farm life have disappeared?
Eventually I did come to find this windmill in the heart of South Dakota. I marked its location and returned to it later in the evening to record the stars making their passage behind it. In this picture the stars are transient, leaving their trails behing them. In a larger time scale, the windmill is transient, eventually turning to rust and dust while the stars continue on.
Central South Dakota
16 July 2001
Pentax 67 w 55mm lens at f/4
30 minute exposure on Fuji Provia 100 pushed 2 stops

A target I keep trying to capture, M33, the Triangulum Galaxy.

There's always something. I managed to get the tracking and focus properly set for this shot of the Trifid Nebula, but sometime during the exposure an airplane cruised by with its running lights on. Note the three pairs of white and red "stars" along the track from the plane's flashing beacons.

I was here! I was at the top of Glacier's world. I could look down into the glacier-cut valleys, but was still shadowed by the heads of mountains that stood even higher. I had been here before, but as I now examined the site of my photographic goal, it didn't match my minds image.
I had to rethink my composition, but standing at the top of one of the most beautiful places on the planet, I didn't have to look very hard to see new possibilities. Mt Pollack loomed to the north, Clements and Reynolds to the south and west. The valley to the east contained more distinctive peaks.
I settled on this view of the head of Mt Pollack.
Polaris is the center of stellar motion, and there is a light band accenting the sky: the band of the Milky Way, in this region containing the bright stars in the constellations Perseus and Cassiopiea. The remnant of a summer sun that never gets very far below the horizon provides the red glow behind the mountain's silhouette.
The blending of light in this picture is over an uncertain time period. I opened the shutter at 1:30 but found it closed at 2:30, the victim of a chilled battery. Fortunately, it had done its job well enough to yield Mt Pollack's portrait.
Glacier National Park MT
23 July 2001
Pentax 67 with 55mm lens
Less than one hour exposure on Fuji Provia 100 +2 stop push

The moon, about to drop behind the mountain peaks. It will continue to illuminate the sky until it sets below the horizon.
Glacier Park MT
23 July 2001

The late afternoon breeze pushed cumulus clouds through the mountain pass, some of them containing excess water. Dark smears drained the rain from them as they proceeded down the valley, eventually to evaporate entirely. The mist that was left behind refracted the low angle sunlight into a double rainbow. From my vantage point, the rainbow was complete, its ends striking each side of the valley making a perfect arch.
I was amazed at this. Catching sight of even a partial rainbow is a rare treat for me, but to see one this large was a life treasure! Many people in my position would stand and savor the view, my reaction was to take its picture.
It exceeded a normal viewfinder (a rainbow is 84 degrees across!) and the widest angle lens I possessed just barely fit it in the frame. I did my best to center and arrange the shot during the short life of the ephemeral arch. The picture captures the abrupt eerie change in lighting from inside to outside the rainbow. I was elated to have been at the right place at the right time.
Glacier Park MT
23 July 2001
Nikomat with 20mm lens
Elite Chrome 200 push +2 stops

The distinctive three-pointed peak of Going-To-The-Sun Mountain shows left of center in this view from Logan Pass. The trails of the stars arc gently up to the north, and gently down to the south of true east.
Glacier National Park MT
23 July 2001

A pre-dawn portrait of Wild Goose Island indicated by the warm glow of morning twilight on the distant peaks. The faint vertical bands in the blue sky are the contributions from the Milky Way. A satellite flare cuts across the short 30-minute startrails and clouds are beginning to build in the west while this exposure was made.
Glacier National Park MT
23 July 2001

In front of the Many Glacier Hotel is Lake Josephine, a candidate for my quest for reflected startrails. On the night I was here however, so was the moon. I waited for it to set, a long wait til it fell below the horizon, but not long at all for it to be eclipsed by looming Grinnell Point. Although the moon was now no longer directly visible, it still lit the sky. Film is cheap (I keep telling myself) and I never know if the sky will stay clear, so I made several exposures during its gradual hidden descent. The wind was calm and the lake became smooth. I hoped the conditions would hold.
I dared only leave the shutter open for 30 minutes though, because the sky would wash out if exposed longer. During this time the moon drifted down behind Grinnell Point, leaving a trailing glow. Also during this time, I looked around at the scene, wondering what would be captured on film.
The lake had become so calm and the water was so clear that I could see bottom! At first I was intrigued by the array of fallen trees and rocks and other natural lake bottom material. Then I took a larger view and found it a bit distracting, I wondered if the film would be able to see star reflections at all. How is it that I could see this debris anyway? The moon wasn't bright enough to light the scene in this way.
The Many Glacier Hotel is an old rennovated lodge-like building. A combination of rustic log construction and swiss chalet trim makes it a novel structure at the edge of the lake. Its five stories make it seem unnaturally tall, even in an environment of tall lodgepole pines. Each floor has a lakeside balcony, each balcony connects with an outdoor stairway, each staircase with an access door from the hotel illuminated by floodlights. Here was the source of my unwanted lighting.
I proceeded up the stairway, stopping at each door, and with gloves normally intended for cold-protection, unscrewed each overhanging floodlamp bulb until the entire end of the hotel became dark. It was a clandestine act, but in the name of fighting local light pollution I committed the deed.
The moon was still setting, now behind the distant peak of Swiftcurrent Mountain. Wisps of clouds were coming in, the air frequently breaking the glass surface of the lake, but I made a one-hour exposure, this time without the distraction of the foreground lake bottom.
Glacier National Park MT
25 July 2001
Pentax 67 with 55mm lens at f/4
60 minutes on Fuji Provia 100 +2 stop push

As I unloaded equipment from my car, a fully occupied, muffler-deficient vehicle drove into the dead-end road and parked next to me. Its boisterous occupants piled out and gradually noticed me as they tried to organize themselves for the next phase of their outing. Their effervescence subsided momentarily as they tried to figure out why a lone man with a red flashlight would be at the end of this road at midnight. One of two women in the group, after confirming my non-relationship with law enforcement explained, "We're going skinnydipping…so what're you doing? Wanna join us?"
I politely declined.
As I set up my tripod and framed the picture I sought, the party continued at the shore, their jokes and laughter flowing out over the lake surface, but otherwise not affecting the composition in my viewfinder. I opened the shutter, hoping to get an hour's worth of startrail arc. Maybe the group would forget about swimming, now that they were actually at water's edge. It's one thing for someone to make the suggestion, quite another to carry it out. A sudden splash followed by an excruciating scream interrupted my vicarious participation in the party. Another splash, another scream, then two more with associated hollering.
I had learned better than to close my shutter and pack up. With nighttime pictures one is never certain of the results, and even though it was certain that my intended shot had vanished, there is always the possibility that some other, unexpected effect might be captured instead.
And this is an example of such unexpected imagery. The activities of the skinnydippers, though invisible to me, were exposed by the patterns of light recorded over the hour that the shutter was open. An interesting combination resulted, the prelude of calm allowed the reflection of the mountain to make an impression on the film, and then, when the rough surface finish dissolved its image, the reflection of the lights from the mountain's ski area distorted into flares of color. The film adds all the light together to make the picture.
One final detail was captured. Though I could not see the partiers as they splashed around, evidently there were favorite resting places in the water. A close look at the lake surface reveals their shadows as they paused to enjoy the sensory experience of swimming under the stars at midnight.
Mt Hood Recreation Area OR
07 Aug 2001
Pentax 67 with 55mm lens
25 minutes at f/4 on Fuji Provia 100 +2 stop push

I had managed to book a room in Jackson, successful only because the tourist levels had declined slightly as roads closed to forest fires. In spite of my luck, I did not spend the night there! I proceeded to Grand Teton Park and setup my cameras and telescope at one of the trailheads. There was no moon, the sky was crystal clear, conditions perfect. The only illumination in this 4-hour exposure is starlight, yet the features of the mountains are visible. Eagle-eyed scrutiny may reveal some of the trails leading to the summits, exposed by night climbers, their flashlights punctuating the turns and twists of their route.
16 August 2001
Grand Teton National Park, WY
Pentax 67 with 55mm lens
4 hour exposure at f/4 on Provia 100 pushed 2 stops

This image was recorded during an evening where I had visitors from the neighboring campground. Earlier I had showed a similar but more easily seen object, the Ring Nebula, to Holly and her daughter while waiting for the night to get dark. They were enchanted, as I am, with these views of deep sky treasures.
Beartooth Pass, MT
18 August 2001