Nah. It was definitely aliens.
A couple of notes from Monday night's photography.
An ISO of 1600 is way too high. I had thought it would make things pop, but instead, it washed them out with visual noise. Bringing my ISO1600 photos into Photoshop, I wasn't able to adjust the curves or levels sufficiently to see the Milky Way while keeping the interstellar void inky black. This photo is ISO 800, but it took some work, too, to keep the black looking black. ISO 400 might be best.
This is my fifth attempt at night sky photography and I feel that if I can get the focus issue under control, I can start doing more interesting things like playing with the ISO and trying to frame shots better. Right now, my aim is very crude. I'm relying on the Milky Way showing up somewhere in the photo to give me drama.
It dawned on me that photographing the Milky Way is like shooting the same model over and over again. It's never going to change, so in the end, all of my shots will look the same. The difference will be how crisp they are due to the darkness of the sky and my own technique getting better. At that point, it's all about the surrounding terrain lending some geometry to the scene.
That's enough blather. I left that image quite large, so click away, my friends. Enjoy!
Addendum: I found a couple of helpful blog posts that taught me how to use the back viewing screen of the camera to focus on the stars. I'll give it a try on some other objects tonight after work, but I think that problem will be solved by the end of the day.
Transferring images to the tablet is still useful, though. That will give me the ability to determine if I've framed my shots properly. Without the need to agonize over focusing, I can concentrate on composition.
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