There are two types of photos of star trails: those that are taken by Dan Heller, and those that aren't. Check out the photo from the top of Kilimanjaro.

...his photos of lightning are amazing, too...

When I head out to take night time photos, I want either a full moon [to illuminate the landscape] or no moon at all. The moon is full tonight, but it's going to be cloudy. I'll have to wait until next month.

Maybe mid-month there will be some aurora to photograph. I haven't tried that yet. Of course, we're just exiting the solar minimum, so we'll see how that goes.

Some more astro-photography here. A pair of tutorials here and here.