When Hanson died a short time later, in October 2008, at 81, Weller and Rummel set themselves a more ambitious task. Get an even better photo of the Milky Way, and in the process honor Hanson and his love of the northern Wisconsin wilds, the Apostle Islands in particular.

Weller and Rummel are Madisonians, friends for a decade with a shared passion for astronomy and photography. Weller runs Access Wisconsin, a telecommunications company, and Rummel is a school psychologist at Madison Memorial High School.

Six years ago, during a casual conversation, the two friends decided to try to shoot the Milky Way, the galaxy that contains our solar system and millions of stars that can be seen as a broad, irregular band of light stretching across the night sky.

Attempts in Dane County and other parts of southern Wisconsin were unsuccessful. Weller explained that light pollution from human-generated sources in cities and even on farms "washes out the stars."

Weller eventually contacted his friend Martin Hanson, who lived west of Mellen in northern Wisconsin on property inside the Chequamegon National Forest. Hanson was an heir to a Chicago furniture manufacturing fortune and a friend to Democratic politicians. His brother, Louis, was a longtime top aide to Gaylord Nelson.

Hanson invited Weller and Rummel to try their luck capturing the Milky Way from his property.

Still, even with the pristine night sky, getting a good shot took visits over several summers. "A lot of trial and error," Weller said.

Bears were also a problem. "You could always hear them," Rummel said, and once Weller narrowly escaped a charge by a bear.

But in the summer of 2008, over two spectacularly clear nights, they managed some good shots of the Milky Way from Hanson's property.

When Hanson, who had been in poor health, died on Oct. 22, Weller and Rummel decided to honor his memory by attempting a shot that would wed the Milky Way and Hanson's great love for the Apostle Islands. Hanson had been instrumental in Congress's passing a bill creating the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in 1970.

This past June, after securing permission from the National Park Service, Weller and Rummel, accompanied by Weller's 19-year-old son, Ian, took a boat from Bayfield to Outer Island, a wilderness island that is the most remote of the Apostles. It has a small cleared area where a light station stands, and that's where the photographers hoped to do their work.

It turned out better than they could have hoped. "A once-in-a-lifetime photo," as Weller later noted.

They had to get lucky - needing a cloudless sky on one of a few new moon nights - and did.

They mounted their camera on top of a telescope that had been equipped with a slow-motion drive intended to cancel the effects of the Earth's rotation. It had a four-minute exposure; a separate four-minute exposure - without the slow-motion drive engaged - was used to shoot the Light Station and house. The two photos were then merged into one stunning print, which is being sold in a limited edition of 100, with proceeds benefiting the Friends of the Apostle Islands (for more information, visit www.friendsoftheapostleislands.org).

The first print was presented by state Sen. Bob Jauch and U.S. Rep David Obey to Ken Salazar, the Secretary of the Interior who visited the Apostles over the summer.

It was reminiscent of a visit to the Apostles by another dignitary, back in 1963, when national park status was first being sought for the Apostle Islands. The visitor was President John F. Kennedy. His host? Martin Hanson.