who is afraid of the dark?

[Skyman]

I have always loved night time photography, but last weekend i did something completely new for me. I took photos in what many would call complete darkness. I am used to using film for these shots however i went digital on the most recent ones and am wondering if anyone out there has had a play with this. my exposure times varied between 2-9 minutes at iso 100 and f 2.8 on a canon 300d with 28mm lens i did notice on some of the pictures there was noticable noise with the odd pixel here and there going a completely random colour. i know these compositions are very average but i am still playing with the digital long exposure. any tricks or tips would be greatly appreaciated. For those of you that know sydney the area is the Gap. famous for the number of suicides that have taken place there.