Didn't know what time it was, the lights were low...

David Bowie's Starman popped into my head once my heart stopped pounding and I set up my tripod. I was on familiar ground, and I just saw my first shooting star of the night. It wouldn't be long before i could start counting satellites. My first time seriously attempting an astrophotography shot was along the Delaware Bay. I treated myself to a third-hand DSLR for my 35th birthday, and came down to Cape May to shoot the WW1 Era Ghost Tracks that washed up from a successive Nor'Easters. Since then I have had various successes and spectacular failures, but always enjoyed my venture into the woods at night.

This time I was a little apprehensive for some reason, but I looked at the forecast and saw it was going to be exceptionally clear night. It was so clear in fact that I was listening 1230 AM Boston Radio on the way down. They had a story about how 15 thousand people have descended on the Witch Trial Town of 45,000 people. I thought 0- yea that sounds about right for Cape May in the Summer on any given day.

I parked and hiked about a mile down the bay to take some interesting shots against a sky that seemed to be alive tonight.

Maybe the Hike was why my heart was pounding. I haven't had much exercise in a while and walking on moist sand with gear on your back is taxing to someone whose back has been crap , whose oot as been crap, and whose diet has been crap. I'm hoping to break the cycle with outings like this.

It could have also been pounding because I came ill prepared for how dark it was going to be. I had a mediocre headlamp my partner used last while night kayaking the other night. She needed it on full power, and as a result the batteries were half dead. I tried to buy new ones- no one had AAA! So as I was trudging in the dark letting my eyes adjust I heard lots of twigs snap and bay with waves that sounded like small crafts washing up. I saw flashing marine lights from boats out on the bay, the unmistakable flash of the Cape May Light every 15 seconds, and then I heard the not too distant sound of fox crying. If you've never heard that before, its best described as someone being murdered... needless to say putting all of that together it heightened my senses a bit.

If you're curious to hear what a fox cry sounds like Youtube is a wonderful resource. By all means watch below, listen with headphones as you're trying to lull yourself to sleep. Very soothing.

Once I settled down I gave some compositions a shot. I filled my frame with Dead trees, leading lines, and nightscapes. - I don't know how well they'll print. In my experience it's always darker. I'd like to put the dead tree on canvas, the panoramic has to be played with to get the bay right. There was a lot of light pollution coming out of Lewis Delaware that made for a cool shot. Although these were all shot at the same time of night, they have different temperature settings. Some of these are blends of 5 images to create an HDR - High Dynamic Range- a process of layering different exposures to pull out the most detail. Some of them are just straight 13 second exposures. I think i may turn down the saturation on some before sending it to print.

Once I left the bay, i headed for Sunset Beach. I always wanted to shoot this shot, wondering what compositions I could get if the Milky Way lined up just right. The omnipresent lights coming from the Cape May Sunset Beach Gift Shop and Beach Shack lit the tower nicely. Please let me know which composition you like.

All of these images were shot using the HDR method.

Specs- 14mm f/2.8 13 Second Exposure base shot, then blended with a 6 second, a 25 second and a 50 second exposure. The lighting on the right side is from the beach shack, The lighting on the left side is from Cape May Light.

There is one more spot in this area i want to revisit with my astro lens. I didn't have my study tripod and I felt i had pushed the boundaries of where I was allowed to be enough for the night. Even though these images were taken earlier in the evening, the sun set at 6:30, I didn't want to attract attention of being a lone car in a parking lot on a Friday night- I do have shooby plates.

Until next time this has been 1030 AM WDZ Boston News Radio signing off...