I have always been so jealous of those amazing night sky photos people post and honestly, I'm just usually up for a challenge and have wanted to try it for some time.  Having virtually no idea what I was doing I pinged my best photo buddy Robin and asked if she wanted to head up over the pass and try to do some shots.  She agreed and off we went late one evening, pulled off in a turnout and set up the cameras.  It wasn't too cold or windy and honestly none of these photos do justice to the AMAZING stars we saw, Milky Way included.   Yup you'll even see a plane in one BUT the bonus was I saw a shooting star as well which was totally cool.

Learned a lot and next time will try using my 60D instead and see how it works (it will be better with high ISO I am sure).  These were all at 1600 and varied from 32 seconds to gosh I think one I deleted was 211 seconds.  Okay so I can't count very accurately when I'm busy chatting with my buddy.   I loved some of them on the camera but when I got them off not so much but I know that drill all too well.

Can't wait to go out again and try some more shots.  This was our last clear night before weather moved in and where we wouldn't have the moon.   Now to start scouting some more spots to go!  :)

Yup was the beginning of an attempt at star trails (and airplane trails).

I wanted the dead tree in a shot - hard to see in the dark tho!  LOL

I was very pleased with my capture of the big dipper!

Nothing earth shaking but still not bad for a newbie!