Spending the weekend on lake Pokegama (Po- Keg-Ama, not Pokey-Gamma) in Grand Rapids gave a nice opportunity to get some really dark skies for astronomy and astrophotography. The first evening was overcast until well past my bed-time. The second evening was pretty special.
Around 10pm, the milky way was glowing overhead, the constellations were hard to pick out as there were many more background stars than a London based sky-watcher normally sees.
I took some photographs, of course. The settings were 18mm focal length, infinity focus, 20sec exposure time, and remote control shutter release (to avoid camera shake).
Alas, there was no northern light activity while I was there, it started up on the evening after I left.
All in all, a wonderful experience.