Hello to All! I'm a member of Fine Art America and have two groups, that I manage and also post a lot to the other threads, relative to photography, Photoshop,photo business,camera gear,etc. Many of these never see the light of day again, so I've decided to go and "rescue" them and post them here. 

Here's one form that FAA site, about "Night Photogrpahy", in response to another members question:

Mary,

 One of the easiest techniques to use, along with a cable release or self-timer, is MLU, Mirror Lock-Up. Many photographers mistakenly attribute "softness" of the image to the quality of the lens and in many cases, it's the vibration from the heavy mirror,slapping down,while the shutter is still open. So get the manual out and look this up and see if your camera has this MLU.

Here are 2 good explanations of MLU:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/mirror-lock.shtml

https://improvephotography.com/9442/mirror-lockup-is-a-conspiracy-sort-of/

"However, if you don’t yet have a professional tripod and ballhead (click here to see my good, better, and best tripod and ballhead recommendations), then MLU is one setting you should pay attention to when using shutter speeds between 1/80 and 3 seconds."

So any shutter speed faster than around 1/80th won't see/be affected by the mirror and then from there, to the longer exposures,seconds,it will be seen and then any longer exposures and the vibration will blend in and not be seen. So there is a range when you should use MLU.

Next, night shots! Don't know if you have any "night" around you,probably do,so let's practice before you go to this great location. Now, with no pressure, you should really learn your camera and controls,before getting somewhere and looking to find certain buttons or functions,while the shot of your life is slowly vanishing! Take your camera AND your husband! and just go and find some horizon shots,doesn't need to be pretty for this excercise,set up the tripod,camera,cable release and set the camera's ISO @100 and begin to record the setting Sun. I would actually wait until the sun is below the horizon for this test. Keep the F-stop constant, F11 or F16 or so and watch the sky,as it turns from warm to blue and record the exposure times(should be in "file Info",if you camera records that stuff) and watch your "histogram" too. As it get's darker, the meter is going to want to open up and make the scene brighter,which we don't want! So watch the histogram for that or just watch the screen,but at night,the histogram is better to use for judging exposure.

Ok, here's where the fun begins! To your eye, it's pretty dark and not much color, BUT to the camera, it's GLORIOUS! (By now, most of the other photographers will have left,but you'll know that the best is yet to come, in Acadia.) The sky might look black to you,but it's still has lot's of color to your camera. I'd keep shooting until the exposures are getting long,minutes, instead of seconds, for this test anyway. This may take 30 minutes to do this,more, if you start when the sun is still visible in the sky or horizon line.

It also might help for you to have a small note book and record your "classification" of the sky/sunset and how light and dark it is,as you're capturing the images. Later, you can look at the notes and see " Pretty black now and can't imagine getting anything from this" and then compare that to the actual file capture and you'll be in for a surprise!

Later, your "eye" can be trained to know how the sky looks and know how the image will come out! But I would make a tiny chart,with exposure times and time "time" relative to the time posted for actual sunset and know, 14 minutes after the actual "posted" time for sunset, F16,@ISO 100 and 1 minute and 30 seconds and I've got the shot!

There have been times(usually lot's of bugs were involved) when I won't even get out of the car, until the sun is below the horizon!