Meteor Shower Now

PERSEID METEOR
SHOWER
WHEN: Peaks on August
12. WHERE: Rural areas
in North America. WHAT;
Get yourself away from
City lights and (preferably)
up into the mountains to
watch the annual Perseid meteor shower,
which rains up to 100 meteors an hour from
July 23 through August 22. TIP: The nearly
full moon this year will add light to the night
sky, so experiment with shorter exposure
times (5 to 10 minutes). Cable release,
tripod, you know the drill. FOR INFO: http://www .
space.com/spacewatch
--
Bob,
'There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.' Ansel Adams
Great Pro1
Casio Z750

--
mindstorm.smugmug.com
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I've never taken (even attempted) pictures of the night sky. I'm interested in doing something with this meteor shower. Can someone give me some advice, something beyond "use a tripod"? I have several lenses as options: Nikons 18-200, 24-85, 70-300, and Sigma 70-200 2.8

Any and all help would be appreciated.

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but this might not be the year to get excited about the Perseids.

The moon is nearly full (about 81% illuminated), and is in the sky from the late evening through 'til morning. A 'several minute' time exposure with a bright moon in the sky is likely going to be rather blown out.

The Perseids are known as a 'late' shower, i.e., the RADIANT, or the point in the sky from which they appear to emerge (the constellation Perseus) doesn't rise until past midnite at this time of year. Having said that, there WILL be meteors earlier in the evening. Just don't expect to see 100/hour. More like 5 or 10 an hour if you're lucky!

If you're watching before Perseus rises in the Northeast, follow the streaks back, and you'll see that they seem to "radiate" from a point below the Northeastern horizon.

If you DO try to shoot this shower, try taking some really wide angle images BEFORE the moon rises.

Good luck!
--
Jonathan Sabin
http://www.flickr.com/photos/74825044@N00/

Ok, so this year's meteor shower may not be as good as last year's due to the brightness of the moon, but I thought I'd post the link to the North American Meteor Network which discusses tonight's peak:

http://www.namnmeteors.org/namnnotes0608.html

There are clear skies over some parts of North America tonight, so at least we have a chance of viewing something. The best meteor showers for those in the EDT timezone are right at sunset, which is before the moon rises anyway. The space.com website also has a tidbit on photographing meteor showers, which is mostly tips from NASA:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/leonids_photographing.html

Cheers,
Jennifer
--
http://www.jclarksonphotography.com

Despite the full moon etc, I went out at 10pm (BST) and saw quite a few of these streaking across the sky. The moon didn't appear to be full and didn't come into view until an hour later.

--
Colin Malsingh
-------------------
http://www.pbase.com/cmalsingh

I saw a few shooting stars in Ottawa (Canada), but none were bright/long enough to show up on film. I captured my first stars, though! I'll try again tonight.

Jennifer
--
http://www.jclarksonphotography.com
Photography Tips, Forums, Articles, and Galleries

That next year will be much better.

Jonathan Sabin said:

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but this might not be the year to
get excited about the Perseids.

The moon is nearly full (about 81% illuminated), and is in the sky
from the late evening through 'til morning. A 'several minute' time
exposure with a bright moon in the sky is likely going to be rather
blown out.

The Perseids are known as a 'late' shower, i.e., the RADIANT, or
the point in the sky from which they appear to emerge (the
constellation Perseus) doesn't rise until past midnite at this time
of year. Having said that, there WILL be meteors earlier in the
evening. Just don't expect to see 100/hour. More like 5 or 10 an
hour if you're lucky!

If you're watching before Perseus rises in the Northeast, follow
the streaks back, and you'll see that they seem to "radiate" from a
point below the Northeastern horizon.

If you DO try to shoot this shower, try taking some really wide
angle images BEFORE the moon rises.

Good luck!
--
Jonathan Sabin
http://www.flickr.com/photos/74825044@N00/

Click to expand...

--
Mike L.

I was in Monument Valley taking a few long film night exposures trying to catch something. hope I got something good. Steve Sieren
--
Quitting the day job! I wish!

Mike Lewis said:

Mike Lewis said:

(I heard) that next year will be much better.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

You are correct: in 2007 the Perseid meteor shower will not be affected in ANY way by the moon since it will be new moon the night of August 11-12.

In my original response, I didn't mean to discourage anyone from watching this year's shower, I just wanted people to be aware that watching for meteors with a nearly-full moon in the sky would severely interfere with the view.

I'll stand by my original suggestion that photo opportunities were better suited to be attempted early in the evening PRIOR to moonrise. Check out Spaceweather's Perseid photo gallery for some images: (none are mine, btw)
http://spaceweather.com/meteors/gallery_12aug06.htm

One other note about the Perseid's --it has a wide "peak" compared to most other meteor showers. In other words, while most showers are visible only on a single night, the Perseid's can be seen for a couple of weeks prior to, and after August 11-12. There are MORE of them on the night of the 11-12, but you can certainly catch a few stragglers in the days before and after.

Just this morning, (Aug 17) at 5:55 AM, I caught a nice 'burner' while walking my dog. When I followed the path back... it pointed straight to the constellation Perseus!

--
Jonathan Sabin
http://www.flickr.com/photos/74825044@N00/

Thanks for the update Jonathan. I caught a few (by eye, not camera).

I thought your link was interesting. Especially the one near the bottom by Chuck Hunt. The comet trail seems to have a "pulsey" quality to it. I know it says he used a Canon Rebl XT, but the bands along the trail remind me of some of the example of "banding" people mention on a D200 sensor.

Anyone care to offer an explanation? I sthis just a feature of night time photography?

--
Colin Malsingh
-------------------
http://www.pbase.com/cmalsingh

Colin,

Regarding the image you referred to:



I copied it to PhotoPaint, blew it up, adjusted the levels, inverted, embossed, and otherwise messed with it, and I STILL didn't see the banding you refer to. (And I am familiar with banding, though fortunately my D200 doesn't seem to be plagued with the problem... perhaps because I don't spend much time photographing light bulbs!) ;-)

Anyway, is it possible that what you are referring to is the TAPERING of the meteor's trail as it moves from the lower left part of the photo to the upper right? If the "pulse" you mention is the bright part about 2/3 the way up, then that's not a banding problem... It's just an example of a meteor that exploded as it burned up in the atmosphere. (Meteors that do this are called "bolides," and they can light up the ground as if someone set off an electronic flash nearby. They're an awesome sight, to say the least!)

My apologies if you knew all of this already, and really did see 'banding' that I couldn't spot!

Jonathan Sabin

CMalsingh said:

I thought your link was interesting. Especially the one near the
bottom by Chuck Hunt. The comet trail seems to have a "pulsey"
quality to it. I know it says he used a Canon Rebl XT, but the
bands along the trail remind me of some of the example of "banding"
people mention on a D200 sensor.

Anyone care to offer an explanation? I sthis just a feature of
night time photography?

Click to expand...

Looking at this again, I wonder if the jagged edges are just JPG artifacts.

I'd have liked to have seen this though!

--
Colin Malsingh
-------------------
http://www.pbase.com/cmalsingh