Yup, there are in fact stars in Southern California! (I'm shocked too)
These are my first star shots, done last night. This was taken in "The Bad Lands" of Moreno Valley, CA. I have done some post processing to get rid of the "light pollution orange" color that's so unavoidable in so cal., but I included the original for the exif. It was taken with a 22.5 min exposure, at f 5.0... There was no moon out, the steaks you see shooting across the sky are airplanes, headed west to Ontario or LAX.
