End of year meteors and meteor showers Feat. The Taurids

This time of year, from the Perseids to the Quadrantids (peaks 3/4 Jan) is generally a busy time for meteors, and this thread is for anything which does not fit into existing threads on the forum, so please feel free to join in and post anything meteor related here which might not fit in elsewhere.

Of course, as well as the better know meteor showers during this period like the Orionids (peaks 20/21 Oct), Leonids (peaks 17-18 Nov), and Geminids (peaks 13-14 Dec), there are many smaller showers active, as well as sporadics (random meteors not associated with currently known showers), which all adds up, and can make some nights very busy for meteors.

Of particular interest this year, are the Taurids, which are divided into two closely related showers, the Northern (peaks 11/12 Nov), and Southern Taurids (peaks 04/05 Nov). The Taurids are very interesting for a number of reasons. Although rates tend to be low (usually no more than a handful can be observed in an hour, even near peak), a significant portion of these are very bright (fireballs) and sometimes they can be extremely bright. It's thought that a Taurid may have caused the 1908 Tunguska blast that leveled 10's of thousands of square km of forest. So there are good reasons to keep an eye on this shower, and one of the best ways is to image or record footage.

Like the Leonids, which has a 33 year cycle, the Taurids have a 7 year cycle, when fireball rates spike, and the last time this happened was 2015, so this year, 2022, is especially important.

Further reading:

Taurid complex smoking gun: detection of cometary activity

Taurid stream #628: a reservoir of large cometary impactors

An observational synthesis of the Taurid meteor complex

Unlike the Leonids, we don't have predictions for precise times when high activity may occur, and high activity can potentially be spread out over many weeks, as it was in 2015 and 2008. Your best bet is to spend as much time as possible pointing cameras up at the night sky between now and mid November. Anything is possible, so I would not necessarily rule out very high rates, or a complete dud, but in years like this there is always a better chance of something very unusual.

My strategy as the regular posters here will know is, as always, to run my two a7SII cameras + 20/1.4 lenses whenever it's clear. I record footage rather than take stills as it's more forgiving in my situation right now (light pollution).

With other showers active there should not be too many very slow nights in the coming weeks, which of course also is highly dependent on your location (light pollution, and many obstructions hiding your horizons will significantly reduce what you see/catch), but the occasional lull, should be expected. I often go a few nights without seeing much, then all of a sudden there is lots of activity!

Take the last few weeks for example. Basically since the last of the Perseids in early-September, there have been very few bright meteors, then all of a sudden, I get a night (2/3 Sep) when my cameras catch two fireballs.

The first of the two occurred a few minutes before midnight, and was a sporadic according to the UKMON analysis . It was also observed and reported by a few witnesses. Here's a capture from one of the UKMON cameras:



Here's the video:
Interestingly one of the UKMON camera operators who caught the event reported that the magnitude was "-5" when the UKMON analysis states "-2.2". So the automated analysis IS prone to under reporting magnitude, by as much as a factor of 2 it seems - something I have long suspected!

The second event was caught by my other camera in less than ideal conditions (lots of high altitude haze), but the terminal flash, and it's after-glow are easily visible through the muck. The UKMON analysis of this event suggests it was another sporadic with an absolute magnitude of "-3.4", but I think it's likely closer to -7 given what I now know.

According to Stellarium, Jupiter was the next brightest object visible in the footage at magnitude -2.93, and given the difference in altitude above the horizon/atmospheric extinction , I think that there's a strong argument that the fireball must be at least 2x brighter than Jupiter at the time! See screencap from my own footage :



Here's a capture from one of the UKMON cameras:



Here's the video: https://vimeo.com/756458459

No one else reported this event, but I submitted a report to the IMO which is still pending (they must have had a busy night or two I'm guessing).

--
Leo S.

Here are the main showers and the moon factor. I think the Orionids and Ursids should be okay as far as the Moon goes, the Leonids might be doable but certainly hampered, but it will pretty much ruin the other showers for me. I live in a Bortle 8 or 9 sky location with the only decent view being southern, which is where the Moon travels. I plan to shoot a few nights around the time of the Orionids.

Orionids, Oct 20-21, Moon 21% full but rises late so not much of an issue.

Southern Taurids, Nov 4-5, Moon 87% full and in the sky most of the night.

Northern Taurids, Nov 11-12, Moon 88% full and in the sky the whole night.

Leonids, Nov 17-18, Moon 36% full and in sky from midnight to sunrise.

Geminids, Dec 13-14,Moon 72% full and in sky from midnight to sunrise.

Ursids, Dec 21-22, Moon 3% full and not an issue.

Thanks for filling in some of the gaps in my post Jack.

The Moon will no doubt be a challenge, especially with trying to image slower/longer lasting meteors like the Taurids. You have more of a chance of getting away with it with fast showers like Leonids and Perseids, but slower meteors like the Taurids can last a good few seconds, which presents a problem when the Moon is high and you'd usually want to shorten exposure times under those conditions. You can easily end up with a fireball over the course of two frames, like this sporadic I caught a few years back in a similar situation:



A quick update - last night was another busy night (feels like the Perseids all over again!) and the cameras caught two more very bright meteors, unfortunately both at some distance again (so not as bright and impressive as they might have been if they were higher in the sky), but this time during near-perfect observing conditions, after Moon-set.

The first occurred at about 04:51 local time/BST and did a pretty good Perseid impression! For some reason videos would not embed for me the other day but seems to be OK now.



Here's a capture of the same event from a UKMON camera:







The second bright event the cameras captured was just under an hour later, and a much slower meteor. This one, unlike the previous event was reported by a handful of people.







Here's a capture of the same event from a UKMON camera:







It is quite striking how many meteors the cameras have capture over the last 3 or so months, which have had bright flares or terminal flares in many cases. Before then, apart from the monster fireball one of the cameras caught in May, which was continuously fragmenting/flaring brightly along much of it's path, the most the cameras caught was little "pops" (granted there one one event that exploded just out of the FOV).

No doubt this is not a new phenomena (I have seen it before), and it may just be my own personal perception (I started running a second camera only in May, effectively doubling my chances of catching something unusual), but it also has me wondering if perhaps something has changed in the atmosphere? I suspect it's more a case of running two cameras. I know I would have caught many more events if I could run a 3rd camera covering the next bit of horizon along - many events have been just out of reach for me due to having neighboring houses in the way!

--
Leo S.

I was shooting this morning before sunrise, almost straight up to the zenith, with an APS-C Canon M200 and Rokinon 12mm f2 lens and caught this guy.

Couple of web sites referred to an obscure October Camelopardalis meteor shower peaking Oct 6. This bright one would like up with that radiant.


Canon M6ii, Rokinon 12mm f2.0, 10 seconds, ISO 400, DxO PhotoLab 5

Larry Rexley said:

I was shooting this morning before sunrise, almost straight up to the zenith, with an APS-C Canon M200 and Rokinon 12mm f2 lens and caught this guy.

Couple of web sites referred to an obscure October Camelopardalis meteor shower peaking Oct 6. This bright one would like up with that radiant.


Canon M6ii, Rokinon 12mm f2.0, 10 seconds, ISO 400, DxO PhotoLab 5

Click to expand...

Larry,

Thanks for contributing. Unfortunately the trail in your image is made by a satellite rather than a meteor. Don't be disheartened. Both types of trail look very similar, and almost everybody gets them mixed up at first. Even with experience, the two can be impossible to tell apart by eye, but the possible cause can usually be narrowed down with out too much effort.

Satellites, since they move quite slowly (compared with meteors) linger over every pixel so that much light light is accumulated by the sensor photo-sites, so cameras pick them up much more easily than faster moving meteors. The sky is also constantly full of satellites. They are all over the place, and hard to avoid.

Luckily, at this time of the year in the northern hemisphere (variable with latitude), they are only visible for an hour or two after/before Sun set/Sun rise, while the Sun is still just below the horizon. In winter the Sun sinks deep below the horizon relatively quickly, so any satellites high in the sky are not visible, but during the summer time the Sun never sinks very low below the horizon, and satellites are visible most of the night.

To tell them apart, which is sometimes near impossible, there are a number of features to look for:

Firstly, shape - usually meteors taper off at the ends of their paths. In this case, the trail starts and ends rather abruptly, going from bright to nothing instantly, suggesting that it was your exposure (start/end) that cut off the trail at both ends. Also notice the slight bend in the start (almost certainly) of the trail (on the left). This is what you get if you press the shutter button manually to start the exposure while there is a satellite in the FOV of the camera.

Meteors tend to be fast and don't last long - usually well under 1 second, so most will not get "chopped off" when using reasonably long exposures, and certainly not at both ends (except perhaps in the most extreme cases). There are also very slow and long lasting meteors, and the Taurids for example are getting there (they enter the atmosphere at ~29 km/s), but are still fairly speedy, compared to the slowest meteors which are usually no more than 10 km/s.

For comparison Perseids are traveling at around 59 km/s relative to Earth when they enter the atmosphere, and the fastest meteors eg. Leonids hit @ ~ 72 km/s near to the theoretical maximum for object in solar orbits (objects with extra-solar orbits can be MUCH faster).

Bottom line, meteors are usually much faster than satellites, so you should catch the entire event in most cases, where as satellites are almost certain to get chopped off at the start and/or end of the exposure. So in this case it's very unlikely to be a meteor.

But getting back to shape, satellites can also taper off at the ends, when they "flare". A flare occurs when the correct angle between a highly reflective surface on the satellite, the observer/camera, and the Sun is achieved, and then fades as the angle continues to change, so it's not always straight forward to tell which is which, but as you gain experience you will be able to tell most apart by eye.

Meteors, especially brighter ones also have flares, caused by partial or catastrophic fragmentation events, when they suddenly brighten, and these can look similar to satellite flares.

Secondly, colour - satellites tend to lack colour, although sometime they do take on a slight yellow/orange/red hue due to either passing into/out of Earth's shadow, being low in the sky (just like the Sun looks red/orange near the horizon) or the reflective surface being tinted eg. gold.

Meteors also tend to lack colour when they are dim, and/or slow (speed has a lot to do with what colours a meteor produces), but as they get brighter/faster you tend to get more colours, often green/orange, but any colour is possible. Green (an emission due to Oxygen usually, but not always) is a sure sign that you have a meteor, along with blue and purple.

Probably the best way to tell though, is to flick through images taken before and after the image in question - a good image browser helps here. If it's a satellite you'll likely find a continuation of the trail in images taken before/after, and this usually settles the argument in most cases.

Another way to tell is to download Stellarium, and try loading up various groups of satellites in the satellite options (let me know if you get stuck). If your camera's clock is set accurately (if not, you can work out how much off it is providing you have not reset the time since then) you can usually work out which satellite caused the trail. It gets slightly harder/more complicated if space-junk was the cause as you have to load up even more objects.

All that aside, your image/starry background is great IMO, and you are doing the right thing to point up. There are some downsides/upsides depending where you point, but almost anything can work, depending most on your luck on the night:

Pointing up

Upsides:

-High in the sky, and directly above you is usually when a meteor is nearest to you. This means more detail and brighter due to being closer (frame-filling, possibly) and with less atmosphere between you and the meteor.

-Relatively small meteors look more impressive/photogenic, and fireballs even more so.

-There are many more small meteors than big/bright meteors, so you should catch them quickly/regularly, despite not covering much atmosphere, and many more even more faint meteors (large apertures can help here).

-If you're at a half decent location high in the sky is less light polluted and less obstructed than lower down in the sky.

Downsides:

-By pointing up you only cover a tiny part of the total atmosphere, so chances are reduced of you catching a brighter (rarer) event.

-Increased chance of part of the meteor being outside the FOV, especially with narrower FLs.

Pointing down

Upsides:

-The same lens covers many times more square km of atmosphere, so your chances of catching brighter events/fireballs increases dramatically.

Downsides:

-Most bright events will be far away (500+ km if your horizon is very clear lower down), so not much detail, and some of the brightness is lost due to atmospheric extinction . If you cant a very bright fireball atmospheric extinction hardly matters though.

-Dimmer events are almost completely lost, especially under less than ideal observing conditions.

Ultimately it's up to you what you chose depending on what you are after and your situation/observing conditions. The 12mm is OK, but has a tiny aperture @ f2. If you are just after meteors, try your 16mm @ 1.4 pointed up. Despite the narrower FOV, the extra aperture should catch more meteors. If you have fairly clear horizons, you could also try for fireballs/brighter meteors with the 16mm or the 12mm.

Ideally you want to leave the camera running/taking exposures over night/for as long as you can if you want the best chance of catching something bright, so if you have not already got one, get yourself a remoter release cable that has a "running lock" (a cheap one from ebay or the like does the trick), which when engaged will keep the shutter firing till you stop it or run out of battery/memory. All Canons have this feature as far as I know.

If you can, cover another part of the sky with another camera - that should roughly double your chances/total effective time spent shooting the sky, and you will start catching interesting stuff much quicker.

Apart from that, just keep trying, and don't be too put off by the Moon/a little cloud. You'll catch meteors soon, and hopefully some fireballs if you keep at it. The Moon will be out of the way in a week or two, and it's looking like we might be in for a real treat oven the next few weeks. I'll explain more very soon..

Hope this helps, and good luck!

--
Leo S.

1DSmII said:

Larry Rexley said:

I was shooting this morning before sunrise, almost straight up to the zenith, with an APS-C Canon M200 and Rokinon 12mm f2 lens and caught this guy.

Couple of web sites referred to an obscure October Camelopardalis meteor shower peaking Oct 6. This bright one would like up with that radiant.


Canon M6ii, Rokinon 12mm f2.0, 10 seconds, ISO 400, DxO PhotoLab 5

Click to expand...

Larry,

Thanks for contributing. Unfortunately the trail in your image is made by a satellite rather than a meteor. Don't be disheartened. Both types of trail look very similar, and almost everybody gets them mixed up at first. Even with experience, the two can be impossible to tell apart by eye, but the possible cause can usually be narrowed down with out too much effort.

Satellites, since they move quite slowly (compared with meteors) linger over every pixel so that much light light is accumulated by the sensor photo-sites, so cameras pick them up much more easily than faster moving meteors. The sky is also constantly full of satellites. They are all over the place, and hard to avoid.

Luckily, at this time of the year in the northern hemisphere (variable with latitude), they are only visible for an hour or two after/before Sun set/Sun rise, while the Sun is still just below the horizon. In winter the Sun sinks deep below the horizon relatively quickly, so any satellites high in the sky are not visible, but during the summer time the Sun never sinks very low below the horizon, and satellites are visible most of the night.

To tell them apart, which is sometimes near impossible, there are a number of features to look for:

Firstly, shape - usually meteors taper off at the ends of their paths. In this case, the trail starts and ends rather abruptly, going from bright to nothing instantly, suggesting that it was your exposure (start/end) that cut off the trail at both ends. Also notice the slight bend in the start (almost certainly) of the trail (on the left). This is what you get if you press the shutter button manually to start the exposure while there is a satellite in the FOV of the camera.

Meteors tend to be fast and don't last long - usually well under 1 second, so most will not get "chopped off" when using reasonably long exposures, and certainly not at both ends (except perhaps in the most extreme cases). There are also very slow and long lasting meteors, and the Taurids for example are getting there (they enter the atmosphere at ~29 km/s), but are still fairly speedy, compared to the slowest meteors which are usually no more than 10 km/s.

For comparison Perseids are traveling at around 59 km/s relative to Earth when they enter the atmosphere, and the fastest meteors eg. Leonids hit @ ~ 72 km/s near to the theoretical maximum for object in solar orbits (objects with extra-solar orbits can be MUCH faster).

Bottom line, meteors are usually much faster than satellites, so you should catch the entire event in most cases, where as satellites are almost certain to get chopped off at the start and/or end of the exposure. So in this case it's very unlikely to be a meteor.

But getting back to shape, satellites can also taper off at the ends, when they "flare". A flare occurs when the correct angle between a highly reflective surface on the satellite, the observer/camera, and the Sun is achieved, and then fades as the angle continues to change, so it's not always straight forward to tell which is which, but as you gain experience you will be able to tell most apart by eye.

Meteors, especially brighter ones also have flares, caused by partial or catastrophic fragmentation events, when they suddenly brighten, and these can look similar to satellite flares.

Secondly, colour - satellites tend to lack colour, although sometime they do take on a slight yellow/orange/red hue due to either passing into/out of Earth's shadow, being low in the sky (just like the Sun looks red/orange near the horizon) or the reflective surface being tinted eg. gold.

Meteors also tend to lack colour when they are dim, and/or slow (speed has a lot to do with what colours a meteor produces), but as they get brighter/faster you tend to get more colours, often green/orange, but any colour is possible. Green (an emission due to Oxygen usually, but not always) is a sure sign that you have a meteor, along with blue and purple.

Probably the best way to tell though, is to flick through images taken before and after the image in question - a good image browser helps here. If it's a satellite you'll likely find a continuation of the trail in images taken before/after, and this usually settles the argument in most cases.

Another way to tell is to download Stellarium, and try loading up various groups of satellites in the satellite options (let me know if you get stuck). If your camera's clock is set accurately (if not, you can work out how much off it is providing you have not reset the time since then) you can usually work out which satellite caused the trail. It gets slightly harder/more complicated if space-junk was the cause as you have to load up even more objects.

All that aside, your image/starry background is great IMO, and you are doing the right thing to point up. There are some downsides/upsides depending where you point, but almost anything can work, depending most on your luck on the night:

Pointing up

Upsides:

-High in the sky, and directly above you is usually when a meteor is nearest to you. This means more detail and brighter due to being closer (frame-filling, possibly) and with less atmosphere between you and the meteor.

-Relatively small meteors look more impressive/photogenic, and fireballs even more so.

-There are many more small meteors than big/bright meteors, so you should catch them quickly/regularly, despite not covering much atmosphere, and many more even more faint meteors (large apertures can help here).

-If you're at a half decent location high in the sky is less light polluted and less obstructed than lower down in the sky.

Downsides:

-By pointing up you only cover a tiny part of the total atmosphere, so chances are reduced of you catching a brighter (rarer) event.

-Increased chance of part of the meteor being outside the FOV, especially with narrower FLs.

Pointing down

Upsides:

-The same lens covers many times more square km of atmosphere, so your chances of catching brighter events/fireballs increases dramatically.

Downsides:

-Most bright events will be far away (500+ km if your horizon is very clear lower down), so not much detail, and some of the brightness is lost due to atmospheric extinction . If you cant a very bright fireball atmospheric extinction hardly matters though.

-Dimmer events are almost completely lost, especially under less than ideal observing conditions.

Ultimately it's up to you what you chose depending on what you are after and your situation/observing conditions. The 12mm is OK, but has a tiny aperture @ f2. If you are just after meteors, try your 16mm @ 1.4 pointed up. Despite the narrower FOV, the extra aperture should catch more meteors. If you have fairly clear horizons, you could also try for fireballs/brighter meteors with the 16mm or the 12mm.

Ideally you want to leave the camera running/taking exposures over night/for as long as you can if you want the best chance of catching something bright, so if you have not already got one, get yourself a remoter release cable that has a "running lock" (a cheap one from ebay or the like does the trick), which when engaged will keep the shutter firing till you stop it or run out of battery/memory. All Canons have this feature as far as I know.

If you can, cover another part of the sky with another camera - that should roughly double your chances/total effective time spent shooting the sky, and you will start catching interesting stuff much quicker.

Apart from that, just keep trying, and don't be too put off by the Moon/a little cloud. You'll catch meteors soon, and hopefully some fireballs if you keep at it. The Moon will be out of the way in a week or two, and it's looking like we might be in for a real treat oven the next few weeks. I'll explain more very soon..

Hope this helps, and good luck!

Click to expand...

Thanks for being so gentle and informative. I've been doing this for many decades and that trail looked like a classic meteor trail brightening in the middle and did fool me. However the frame after it, which starts 3 seconds later shows that it was a satellite with a trail just going off the right side of the frame on the same track. The next frame was also a reject with a big honking flashing light airplane in it so I didn't look at it carefully enough to see the satellite trail!

So I am proud to have caught an inverse Camelopardalid satellite trail!

More than half the frames in that sequence were ruined by those annoying Starlink satellite trails which now are appearing in multiples side-by-side in some cases. All the Starlink trails were much fainter than my so-called meteor trail which also misled me.

The last few nights (since 7/8 Oct) have been as interesting as they have been frustrating. To put them in some context, here's what this month looks like so far (running two cameras):

1/2 Oct - record from ~19 UT to 02 UT

Nothing significant.

2/3 Oct - record from ~18:20 UT to 03:50 UT

Two fireballs captured.

3/4 Oct - record from ~18:45 UT to 21:15 UT

Nothing significant.

4/5 Oct -Nothing recorded.

Completely clouded out.

5/6 Oct - record from ~18:30 UT to 05:15 UT

Two fireballs captured.

6/7 Oct - record from ~18:35 UT to 19:30 UT

Nothing significant.

7/8 Oct - record from ~18:40 UT to 05:10 UT

One fireball captured and observed visually.

8/9 Oct - record from ~18:55 UT to 05:20 UT

Two fireballs observed visually.

9/10 Oct (tonight) -Nothing recorded.

Completely clouded out/raining.



Here is the fireball from 7/8 Oct, which I also observed. It was about half way up in the sky, so quite close, but recorded under intensely unfavorable conditions (full Moon in shot!), so ISO turned right down to only 10000. It turns out that it was a Taurid according to UKMON , making it my first (ever) Taurid fireball.







Here is a capture of the same event from a UKMON camera:







Last night, 8/9 Oct was also interesting. Early on both my wife and I observed this sporadic fireball:







Then, in the early hours of the morning, out of nowhere (as they usually do!), this Taurid fireball appeared and sped down at a 45 degree angle from my POV, and behind a tree.







It was bright orange, and had a long path in the sky for me, covering perhaps 50-60 degrees, from about 45 degrees above the horizon to perhaps 15 or 20 degrees in not much over a second, although it seemed longer!

As soon as I saw it I was elated, as it was perfectly placed for one of my camera, the one I point out of my first floor window, so it has a good view over a couple of trees, almost down to the horizon. But my heart sank as I turned around around to glance up at my camera - it wasn't running!

From time to time I forget to go up and re-start recording, and this was one of those rare times when I didn't realize I should have re-set it 15 minutes earlier. In an average night I might be late once or twice by a minute or three, but I can't remember a time since I started running the first floor camera (in May this year) that I have been later than 10 or so minutes!

What makes it worse, is how well positioned/close this one was. Although it doesn't look that big/bright in the UKMON capture above, from my point of view at this location it was very bright due to near perfect positioning. I have been waiting for a well positioned event like this to come along since day (or night!) one. So this one got away from me, but a few people reported it, and recorded it. Here's one video:







I'm not really sure what is going on with the directions in the report, because what I observed was not north of here (Derby). Perhaps there were two events at around the same time, who knows.

Either way, there appears to be plenty of bright activity going on already, and I suspect this will only get better over the next few weeks. It's not often we get a brush with a fireball meteoroid-swarm! So get those cameras running!

The Moon is going to be challenging over the next few nights/week but should get better after that. Try not to let it put you off. Aim away if at all possible. Taurids can appear in any part of the sky once the radiant/s has/have gained some height above the horizon.

I see most bright meteors/fireballs between around 45 and 10 degrees above the horizon, so that, IMHO is probably the best area to cover if you are after Taurids, assuming you have good horizons. I do like 20mm on FF aimed at the horizon at the moment, but crave a little more detail, so I'm currently using a 24/1.4 Sammy on one camera, while keeping the 20mm Sigma on the other.

Anyway, good luck to all over the coming nights/weeks!

--
Leo S.

Larry Rexley said:

Thanks for being so gentle and informative. I've been doing this for many decades and that trail looked like a classic meteor trail brightening in the middle and did fool me. However the frame after it, which starts 3 seconds later shows that it was a satellite with a trail just going off the right side of the frame on the same track. The next frame was also a reject with a big honking flashing light airplane in it so I didn't look at it carefully enough to see the satellite trail!

So I am proud to have caught an inverse Camelopardalid satellite trail!

More than half the frames in that sequence were ruined by those annoying Starlink satellite trails which now are appearing in multiples side-by-side in some cases. All the Starlink trails were much fainter than my so-called meteor trail which also misled me.

Click to expand...

You're very welcome Larry,

Unfortunately new satellites are being launched into orbit almost every day, and it's set to get much worse. Most launches are to put small/micro-sats like starlinks into orbit, but they are also starting to put up larger (and much brighter) satellites like the Bluewalker 3 satellites that can be about as bright as a 20-30% lit Moon!

So there is a lot of scope for various types of trail from artificial objects in orbit. Don't forget the space-junk too (there is lots), which can cause brief flashes (rather than longer "flares"), often in series , although not always -- and geostationary sats.

Most of the stuff in orbit is quite faint, but the larger aperture lenses I tend to use pick them up pretty well. Try shooing a few frames with your 56/1.4 as soon as it starts to get dark, and you should pick up plenty of interesting glints/trails which you wouldn't normally pick up with 12mm or even 16/1.4.

As for meteors, and Taurids in particular, although I'd normally say 16mm is a bit wide for meteors in general (especially if you are going after single events/not expecting to catch many of them), the Taurids can be long and very bright, so that would be the lens I'd use at the moment if your priority is as much catching one as it is having some detail in your subject. If the priority is to catch one at any cost then carry on with the 12mm. There are not to many hard rules, and anything can work depending on your situation and luck of the draw plays a significant part.

Good luck, and hopefully the next bright trail you catch will be left by a meteor!

First of: thanks for the heads up on the expected meteor activity, Leo (and Jack).

It's always nice to read your reports, and see some results. A real pity your camera wasn't recording when that big one occured, but I'm convinced you'll capture similar ones in the weeks to come. The last time the Taurids brought us increased fireballs, I was out only half a night and managed to capture the following:


What made those fireballs so special in my experience was the way they flared at relatively slow speeds. In contrast, the meteor in the AMS video seems considerably faster than what I remember from 2015. So perhaps that really is a different event from the one you and most others observed?

cheers,

Another fireball last night, and quite sizable, but lost the best part of it behind some insulation/cladding the neighbor has left on their roof!







It was observed/reported by quite a few (also caught on a few cameras), and caught by a couple of UKMON cameras - here's one example:







--
Leo S.

Greg VdB said:

First of: thanks for the heads up on the expected meteor activity, Leo (and Jack).

Click to expand...

You're welcome, as always Greg.

Greg VdB said:

It's always nice to read your reports, and see some results. A real pity your camera wasn't recording when that big one occured, but I'm convinced you'll capture similar ones in the weeks to come.

Click to expand...

That is my hope too. This is already looking like a good year, and they are just getting started.

Greg VdB said:

The last time the Taurids brought us increased fireballs, I was out only half a night and managed to capture the following:

https://pbase.com/gbleek/image/161860405

Click to expand...

I'd forgotten about your image. Not bad going for half a night! Thanks for re-sharing!

Greg VdB said:

What made those fireballs so special in my experience was the way they flared at relatively slow speeds. In contrast, the meteor in the AMS video seems considerably faster than what I remember from 2015. So perhaps that really is a different event from the one you and most others observed?

Click to expand...

I have to admit, I was thinking the very same. Both of the suspected Taurids I observed took me by surprise with how fast they were, especially the first which I also recorded, and the same goes for the footage you refer to. I'm not sure what exactly is going on, but there seems to be lots of conflicting data right now.

Not least, the directions on the observer maps for both suspected Taurid events seem weird/off to me. If you enable "with observation directions" on the maps, and compare both maps, you'll see what I mean:

The map for the first/smaller Taurid is a bit better, but still seems a bit odd that the arrow would not fall in the region where both sets of observer's directions overlap. Note that the directions I submitted, derived from the video, I have high confidence in how accurate they were as I found some obvious stars close to the start/end points in my own video . I guess the algo has weighted my observation more heavily here due to experience level, but that just seems to have made it worse/further off the mark.

The map for the second, larger suspected Taurid is more confusing. You can see where I am, and the way my camera points (the same camera that caught the first event would have caught the second without doubt) on the map for the first event. Everyone who observed/reported the second event is facing the opposite way in order to see what I saw. I think the only conclusion is that I must have seen something else, despite the timing matching, and me seeing something bright orange falling fast/lined up with the Taurid radiant, behind the tree. It may have been a bird, lit up by a nearby light, I guess.

Anyway, that's all I can think at the moment. It's clear again, so the cameras are up and running, although it does look like it may be starting to cloud up. I'm just concentrating on gathering the data/footage right now, while trying to catch up and sleep/food, and will try to work out what has gone on later (if we get some very cloudy nights!).

Whatever is going on, I'm catching at least as many, if not more fireballs right now than I was during the peak of the Perseids. Perhaps that is luck/coincidence (the UKMON network does not seem to be catching more bright ones than it was 2-3 weeks back), but there do seem to be many more bright meteors about right now.

Last night (11/12) was sometimes cloudy, especially towards the end of the night, but I still managed ~8 hrs x2 recording time. First night in a long while (since the start of the month anyway - it seems a long while to me!) since I've managed to record most of the night and not caught very much. There was one small one (reported as a fireball by two witnesses) which a camera caught, but it did not look worth making a clip/uploading to me as it was very small.

Tonight is 100% clouded out raining, so looking forward to having a rest and an early night for a change tonight, but I just wanted to post this:

If you ever wondered what is "up there" causing these fireballs and meteors, NASA recently released this animation showing the currently known NEO asteroid population. Note that this does not include known NEO comets (eg. the Taurid parent comet 2P/Encke), and it is only the larger objects (140 m and above) that are shown. I think it's safe to assume that there are something like 10x as many 14 m objects as there are 140 m NEOs, and so on - as you get smaller, populations tend to get more numerous.

I received a Rokinon 20mm T1.9 Cine DS AS ED UMC lens yesterday. I took it out last night for a brief test run before the Moon got too high in the sky. The results are fairly impressive. I tested it at T1.9, T2.8, and T5.6. It is definitely usable for meteors at T1.9, gets very sharp by T2.8. All three settings looked good. I'm going to go for first meteor light with it in a few days around the Orionids peak.

It is a cinema lens designed for videography so no clicking into place for f stops, and of course it uses T stops instead of f stops. So I will have to be careful not to touch the T stop ring after I set it.

W5JCK said:

I received a Rokinon 20mm T1.9 Cine DS AS ED UMC lens yesterday. I took it out last night for a brief test run before the Moon got too high in the sky. The results are fairly impressive. I tested it at T1.9, T2.8, and T5.6. It is definitely usable for meteors at T1.9, gets very sharp by T2.8. All three settings looked good. I'm going to go for first meteor light with it in a few days around the Orionids peak.

It is a cinema lens designed for videography so no clicking into place for f stops, and of course it uses T stops instead of f stops. So I will have to be careful not to touch the T stop ring after I set it.

Click to expand...

As I mentioned before, I recently swapped one of the two Sigma 20/1.4 Arts on my cameras for a Samyang 24/1.4, trying to gain a little extra detail in exchange for a slightly increased chance of missing or partially catching an event.

I noticed while analyzing that last clip I posted of the large fireball that the footage looked very slightly out of focus. One of the things I like about the Sigma is that once I've found focus, it stays there, unless I'm very clumsy. On the other hand the Samyangs/Rokinons all seem to be prone to accidentally changing focus, or in some cases aperture.

So I was thinking how to fix this, and considering "taping down" the focus on my Sammy, but first I'm trying a strip of Blu-tack about 3 inches long along the barrel/focusing ring. A little bit of fiddling to get focus set, but seems to do the trick, so far at least. I might tape it down later just to be sure.

Great stuff here as always! Me, I am more into DSO imaging but recently tried to shoot the MW as well. I wonder now if I caught a meteor in one of my pictures. Or is this a satellite flare? Picture was taken on October 3rd. M43 camera and 25mm lens, 3 panel mosaic. MW around the constellation of Aquila.



Cheers, Chris

andresch said:

Great stuff here as always! Me, I am more into DSO imaging but recently tried to shoot the MW as well. I wonder now if I caught a meteor in one of my pictures. Or is this a satellite flare? Picture was taken on October 3rd. M43 camera and 25mm lens, 3 panel mosaic. MW around the constellation of Aquila.



Cheers, Chris

Click to expand...

Very nice photo! It is probably a satellite flaring as it has all those characteristics.

--
Best Regards,
Jack
YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAfQN-Ygh9z7qqUXdZWM-1Q
Flickr Meteor Album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jackswinden/albums/72157710069567721
Sony RX100M3, a6000, and a7

1DSmII said:

W5JCK said:

I received a Rokinon 20mm T1.9 Cine DS AS ED UMC lens yesterday. I took it out last night for a brief test run before the Moon got too high in the sky. The results are fairly impressive. I tested it at T1.9, T2.8, and T5.6. It is definitely usable for meteors at T1.9, gets very sharp by T2.8. All three settings looked good. I'm going to go for first meteor light with it in a few days around the Orionids peak.

It is a cinema lens designed for videography so no clicking into place for f stops, and of course it uses T stops instead of f stops. So I will have to be careful not to touch the T stop ring after I set it.

Click to expand...

As I mentioned before, I recently swapped one of the two Sigma 20/1.4 Arts on my cameras for a Samyang 24/1.4, trying to gain a little extra detail in exchange for a slightly increased chance of missing or partially catching an event.

I noticed while analyzing that last clip I posted of the large fireball that the footage looked very slightly out of focus. One of the things I like about the Sigma is that once I've found focus, it stays there, unless I'm very clumsy. On the other hand the Samyangs/Rokinons all seem to be prone to accidentally changing focus, or in some cases aperture.

So I was thinking how to fix this, and considering "taping down" the focus on my Sammy, but first I'm trying a strip of Blu-tack about 3 inches long along the barrel/focusing ring. A little bit of fiddling to get focus set, but seems to do the trick, so far at least. I might tape it down later just to be sure.

Click to expand...

I’ve got several Samyang and Rokinon lenses as well as Sony lenses. I’ve had that focus changing issue on all three brands, but only a few of the lenses. Some of the less expensive Sonys are bad at that, and I use painters tape with them. Painters tape comes off easily without a mess. I’ve got a Rokinon 8mm f/2.8, Rokinon 12mm f/2, Rokinon 20mm T1.9, Rokinon 24mm f/1.4, and Samyang 35mm f/1.8 AF, none of them lose focus. A couple of older ones I had did, but they had lackluster IQ so I got rid of them long ago. However, I’m very careful not to touch the lens after setup as any can easily lose focus if I accidentally touch the ring. My Sony 55-210mm zoom is really easy to lose focus on. It seems like the focus by wire lenses have way too little resistance built into the focus ring. The MF only lenses often have a lot more resistance and are thus harder to knock out of focus or vibrate out of focus.

It could be a meteor, but I agree with Jack that it's much more likely to be a satellite flare.

W5JCK said:

I’ve got several Samyang and Rokinon lenses as well as Sony lenses. I’ve had that focus changing issue on all three brands, but only a few of the lenses. Some of the less expensive Sonys are bad at that, and I use painters tape with them. Painters tape comes off easily without a mess. I’ve got a Rokinon 8mm f/2.8, Rokinon 12mm f/2, Rokinon 20mm T1.9, Rokinon 24mm f/1.4, and Samyang 35mm f/1.8 AF, none of them lose focus. A couple of older ones I had did, but they had lackluster IQ so I got rid of them long ago. However, I’m very careful not to touch the lens after setup as any can easily lose focus if I accidentally touch the ring. My Sony 55-210mm zoom is really easy to lose focus on. It seems like the focus by wire lenses have way too little resistance built into the focus ring. The MF only lenses often have a lot more resistance and are thus harder to knock out of focus or vibrate out of focus.

Click to expand...

I was thinking duct tape to make it a bit more permanent. Not too worried about making a bit of a mess.

Life would be so much easier if there was a set screw or "focus lock" mechanism. Especially on lenses that are so prone. I'm sure other users of these lenses would appreciate something like that too, not just astrophotographers.

1DSmII said:

I was thinking duct tape to make it a bit more permanent. Not too worried about making a bit of a mess.

Life would be so much easier if there was a set screw or "focus lock" mechanism. Especially on lenses that are so prone. I'm sure other users of these lenses would appreciate something like that too, not just astrophotographers.

Click to expand...

Some of the newer Sony lenses come with a focus lock button, but they are out of my price range. I wanted to get the Sony FE 20mm f/1.8 but it was nearly twice as much as the Rokinon 20mm and both had similar review ratings. I photographed for four hours tonight with the new Rokinon 20mm and the focus stayed spot on without tape. Unfortunately there were a lot of clouds though. The unfortunate thing about the MF only Rokinon lenses is that they don’t usually have a chip, so the camera can’t record which aperture setting was used and general lens information. My Samyang 35mm f/1.8 is AF and has the chip, so I get all the EXIF recorded correctly.