Mono Lake area night shots

I would love to get out more to do this and my errors prove it.  Here are two shots from Mono Lake of the Milky Way.  I would have loved to venture to the Tufa's area and got them into the picture but I forgot my jacket and more important a flashlight.  I ended up using my iPhone for a light and it only had 20% battery.  (Yes inexperience lead to unprepared.  I guess the worst part was those things where in my large camera bag, just not the travel one that I brought with me.)

Both of these are from the South Tufa parking area looking South, thus Mono Lake is at my back.

Here was a quick shot from the Mammoth Lake vista point.  I wanted to do some testing and here was close since we where staying in Mammoth Lake.  (Also I normally do not get spooked but this place was spooky.)

This last one is interesting and I did not really think it would come out very well since the night was young and I had just pulled off of Hwy 395 toward Convict Lake across from the Mammoth Lake/Yosemite airport.

We where heading back from Mono Lake and it was getting toward evening and I wanted to show my wife and daughter what I do for the night shots.  They have seen the pictures but I wanted them to see the sky also.

My daughters first reaction was 'this is cool' and her, her friend and my wife all watches as the Milky Way got brighter.  Thus I figured I should just grab my tripod and shot a couple of pictures to give them a reference to what my pictures show and what they have seen.

Well I had to crop foreground out since it was blown out because the airport beacon would blast the area every few seconds with light, remember the airport is at my back.  Anyway, when we go back, I'll have to take the road further to Convict Lake to get out of the light.

So this was a special picture and I think I even caught a couple of meteors in it.