Best Lens/Settings to shoot Meteors TONIGHT?

Did this last night - so from my experience... though I'm very amateurish as this was only my 2nd attempt ever.

1. Definitely take the 16mm as even though it suffers anywhere but the center it has the best light gathering ability and the widest angle of view. You really have no idea how to predict the locations of the meteors so it's kinda frame, get the settings right and pray.

2. Shoot manual mode but don't go to bulb. Depending on the focal length use the formula of 500/focal length = max exposure time in seconds that you can take w/o having star trails. Also remember if you're shooting JPG use incandescent WB (or a custom with even less reds/yellows) and turn off optical stabilization if using a tripod. Bring a beanbag or something to help weigh down your tripod if you have a cheap flexi one.

3. Depending on how far you're willing to drive from the cities you will probably still suffer from light pollution. I was in a borderline orange yellow zone on this map:

http://www.jshine.net/astronomy/dark_sky/

and still picked up a LOT of light pollution. I settled into somewhere around 15 sec exposure at f/3.2 at ISO 1600 or about 8 sec, f/3.2, iso 3200 and still have wash from the city I'll need to try and edit out later. The shorter shutter speeds and higher iso's will make (this is guess but makes sense) the meteors you do catch stand out and be brighter. Also helps if you're just parked off the road as your shots will be shorter and you'll be able to time your shots between passing car lights. May also want to turn off long exposure NR if you want a faster shot to shot time.

4. Set the camera to manual focus and use your car's high beams to help target an object a long ways off to set the focus and then not touch it once you've found it. I still think it's ridiculous that the NEX doesn't have a distance scale and its drive by wire system focuses past infinity on a bunch of lenses but it's just part of owning a NEX. My 16mm is about 15 degree turn from furthest range back to get infinity focus.

5. I used a IR remote but in all honesty when I got home I fashioned a cheap homebrew solution to depress the shutter release as I got sick of pressing the button every 20 sec or so after an hour in 35 degree weather. The homebrew solution is first set the camera in continuous fire mode and then for the shutter release just get a 1/8" or wider rubber band (just stole some off the broccoli!) and make it fairly tight around the body wrapped on top of the shutter release and if it's not already depressing the shutter button, get another rubber band tie a knot (for a small rubber ball) and tuck it above the shutter release. Viola, 5 cent solution that will have the camera continuously fire all night.

6. Once you get the output in focus and close enough to how you want it, quit fiddling with it, set it to continuous fire, frame and let it run. You'll miss way more of the good meteors (ones that aren't in your frame) by mucking about with the camera all night. Set it, forget it and enjoy the meteor shower. If you get one in frame that's great, if you don't, you got to enjoy the shower instead of messing around with your camera 2/3 the time.

Here's just one fairly unprocessed JPG from last night. Just a slight crop, vignetting brighten and color shift to get rid of the orange hues of light pollution. I'll have to work on the RAWs later.

Very edge of the frame with the 16mm so you can see the edge issues show up. But if I had any other lens on the camera I wouldn't of caught anything at all.