I think I missed out on the best of the aurora show, but I got the Milky Way, some horizon-hugging lights, and about 30 minutes’ worth of star trails.
In the dark—Nov. 7, 2026
star trails
Writing Retreat 2026, days 3–5
Let’s see here:
Wednesday
Wednesday was rainy and cool. I did some editing on the paper printout of There’s Nothing Good at the Top, and finished reading Julian Comstock by Robert Charles Wilson and started Fearless Jones by Walter Mosley. I also discovered that Fargo is available to me on the TV, and so I watched the first few episodes of season 1.
Thursday
Thursday was a better day; the sun came out and the temperature cracked the mid-teens. I wore shorts when I walked over to Poor Michael’s book emporium, where I had a mocha and picked up some books for a friend (I have enough books of my own, thanks). Back at the house I entered my edits from the paper manuscript into my document, and made a few more updates. I still need to add a few scenes and update a few dream sequences, I think; make a few things more explicit. The first draft is you telling yourself the story[1]As Sir Terry Pratchett put it., but by the time it’s a second draft (which is what I’m working on) it should be ready for others to read it too.
The sky was still clear after the sun went down, and it’s quite dark ’round these parts, so I set up my cameras in the yard, one facing north and one pointing pretty much straight up. The north-facing one got about 2½ hours worth of 5‑second exposures for star trails (above); the other one snapped a bunch of 30-second exposures of the Milky Way. I made time-lapse videos from both sets of photos.
Friday
That actually bled into Friday; all the photos were taken before I went to bed at about 1am, but all the processing happened today. I’ve also read some more, and I plowed through all of season 1 of Fargo too, which told a taut story.
And now I’m going to have some supper, and then work some more on my editing. Tomorrow I have to be up early, so it’s probably for the best that it’s cloudy and rainy—I’ll be less tempted to try and get more nighttime photos.
Footnotes
| ↑1 | As Sir Terry Pratchett put it. |
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Writing Retreat 2026, day 2
Yesterday I chopped words from a 3350-word story till it was under 2500 words. I read it over today, and it’s still got the heart of the story in it. I’ll give it another look in a few days and see if I’ve missed anything.
Today I read about a dozen chapters in Julian Comstock by Robert Charles Wilson. I’m into the final section and I’m still not sure how this is going to end.
I also continued editing the paper manuscript of There’s Nothing Good at the Top. There are a number of things I need to add in there, and the list is growing. (It’s fine; as they say, writing’s re-writing.)
After supper I headed to Wasagaming to snap a short timelapse of the sunset.
I also got a panorama of the sunset sky.
After that, I continued on to Spruces, where the clouds stayed away from the shots I wanted of the Milky Way.
Back at the house, I set up for some quick star trails (and got a bonus shot of the Big Dipper).
And now it’s just past midnight, and I’m going to go to bed. (That’s one thing about doing this retreat in mid-September rather than July or August; I don’t have to stay up till 1 am to get properly dark skies.)
Update: It appears that, if I’d stayed up another hour or two, I might have caught some horizon-hugging aurora last night. Ah well, so it goes.
A shadow on the moon
I set up on the deck last night for an hour or so to get the lunar eclipse.
The images in the panorama above were taken at 2‑minute intervals (with occasional adjustment to the camera’s aim). They’re all 250mm, f/5.6, and either 1/100s, ISO 100 (the crescents) or 1s, 200 ISO (the ruddy disks).
Since I was already out there, and the sky was clear, I set up my 2nd camera, pointing straight up, to get some star trails. (And satellite tracks aplenty, some iridium flares, and maybe a very small meteor or two.)
This one’s made up of ~630 images, each 11mm, f/2.8, 5s. (I didn’t check the ISO on these, but I’d guess it’s in the 100–400 range.)
Out in the dark
Kathleen came home from a coffee-with-the-ladies evening and said, “You should go take some pictures.” The sky was mostly clear and the night was warm, so I did.
The sky to the north was pretty busy, as you can probably tell from the star trails at the top of this post. I was about a mile from the end of the runway at the Brandon airport, and I think someone was doing night takeoff and landing practice, because a prop plane—maybe a Hercules, but I’m not sure it was quite loud enough—passed through my shot three or four times. And then there are all the satellite tracks, my word.
I also managed to get Jupiter and two of its moons (Io and Ganymede, if I’m reading this right).
And Orion was nice and bright, too. This is a stack of three photos, all taken at 50mm, f/1.8, 10 seconds, ISO 400. I wish the focus was slightly better.
All told I was out there for about an hour. As I was packing up my gear, I heard a coyote start yipping.
Arcs
I didn’t catch any Geminids last night, but from about 9pm to 9:30pm and then again from 10:30pm to 1:30am I recorded some of Earth’s rotation.
(The lacuna is because the camera battery died and I didn’t replace it for about an hour.)
Overnight in the city
As I was going to bed last night, I took a look out the window. The forecast had said it was supposed to be partly cloudy overnight, but the sky looked pretty clear. I set up a camera in the spare room, pointed out the window, and let it snap away. I figured I’d get some star trails out of it if nothing else.
The aurora decided to make an appearance. It was just getting ramped up when my camera battery died around 2:30am, but I got a couple good shots out of it.
Oh, and the star trails turned out pretty good, too. They’re at the top, and are taken from about the first hour and a half of the evening.
The video below is the full two hours and thirty-six minutes, but it runs at 60x so that one second of video is one minute of real[1]Whatever that might mean, relativistically. time.
Footnotes
| ↑1 | Whatever that might mean, relativistically. |
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Stayed up late again
I think it was worth it, even if a thunderstorm woke me up early this morning.
I shot at Spruces for about an hour and a half, and met a couple who had stopped in on their way from Brandon to Dauphin. (Hi, Doms & Debs, if you’re reading this!)
Here are a couple timelapses, one of the Milky Way floating above Clear Lake and another of the stars wheeling across the sky.
Aurora from my upstairs window
The aurora data were good last night, but I’d had a long day so I didn’t go out in the countryside last night. I did set up a camera in the spare room, in case it got bright enough to be seen over the city lights. At worst, I thought, I’d get a few hours’ worth of star trails.
Oh, and the star trails turned out OK, too.
I set up the camera around midnight; the battery finally died around 4:35am. The trails above are made from about 2,200 frames, each 5 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 800.
Oscar night star trails
I set up my camera in the upstairs bedroom, pointed northeast, for about an hour.
Technical details: 335 light frames, 4 dark frames, each 10 seconds, f/1.8, ISO 100.