One of the great things about Northlandia is the dark night sky. I went out one early morning to simply experiment with the camera. These shots are all flawed but with each snap I think I learn something new.
With this shot I learned that the South Lagoon, 3 miles south of Emerald City, is a spooky place at night. What one should NOT assume by this shot is the need to keep the truck lights on to keep whatever is out there away from me. Only an over-imaginative wuss would ever get scared being alone in a creepy-crawly lagoon in the middle of nowhere.
But if you can get past looking over your shoulder every 5 seconds, you can maybe get a good shot of the night sky. This isn't very good, a bit too grainy because I set my ISO too high, but still just about the best place to get dark sky shots.
See what I mean about this place? Perfect...or perfectly scary.
Not far up the road from the lagoon and right across from the fairgrounds is this area of reasonably dark sky. Closer to town so more ambient light. The shed, truck, and whatever that tripod thingie is gives some good background. I'll have to do better with this place when next I travel North.
Turn the tripod around 180 degrees and there are the Mercer County fairgrounds. By the way Mark and I were talking about attending the fair when we were kids. Its hard to imagine now but there were games of chance that actually gave out small packs of cigarettes as well as ducklings. Of course we all remember fondly Frida the Frog Baby (No Ordinary Baby), the Seaton Community Club food stand and, later, my winning Best of Show with a painting of Uncle Ed.
The Wombie showed me this area out by The Grind which is a cul-de-sac which turned out to be a real nice spot for future night sky shots. He called it a landing area for aliens so that should be pretty neat, too.
I admit I didn't do nearly as much photography as I should have and once I leave there is virtually little opportunity for fun shooting down here. I will make a point of it next trip.
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