Perseids of the Past
Three weekends ago the annual Perseid Meteor Shower peaked, and many photographers (including Scott Jarvie and Casey Grimley were out in pursuit of these magical shooting stars.
I was hoping to capture them as well, but I wasn't out in nature - I was at Cape Canaveral, Florida for a rocket launch (I'm writing that story for Steem tonight, and hope to post it some time this weekend). Spoiler alert, I caught one and only one in Florida...and it made me reminisce about the good ol' days of 2016...
I had driven down across the border from Ontario to the Adirondack Mountains in New York state, and hiked up to the top of Mt. Jo (it's a really short mountain near Lake Placid and is an easy hike, even at night), with my tent for decoration and bug-escape. I set up the camera on an intervalometer taking continuous exposures and left it for several hours to go sit in the dark, watch the stars and listen to the Pride and Prejudice audiobook. While I was caught up in the drama of early 19th century England, the camera caught all of these meteors:
This final result is, of course, a blend of different exposures: one for the tent with a flashlight inside, another for the stars, more for the light painted foreground, and one for each of the meteors.
What a great capture. I really like the tent and that you were listening to Pride and Prejudice!
Thank you, Sara! Hehe, yeah, it's a great book.
That’s awesome. Seems like a pretty complicated setup. I’ve never heard of an intervalometer. Off to google it.
It's usually a simple device that triggers the camera at set intervals. My cameras have an intervalometer built-in, which makes it very easy to do continuous 30-second exposures. :)
you had few of this white tent photos, interesting idea, and it really looks good.
Thank you, Marko! Yes, I've taken this Tarp Tent out on a few trips, most notably Iceland. :)
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That's a great composite image. Well done. Unfortunately for me we were under 100% cloud cover for the peak of the shower but I got a couple of meteoroids a few nights on the run up to the 12th of August.
I'm just getting started in astrophotography and your image is very inspiring. Thanks for sharing it.
Thanks for commenting! I'm sorry it didn't work out for you as well as you hoped, but if it's any consolation it seems that this was a poor year for the Perseids in general. There's always next year!
There is so much to see and do in astrophotography and I'm having a lot of fun with it along with the odd bit of frustration lol The last time I saw a really good Perseid shower was in 1991 when I was in France.
It was amazing but I was driving on the motorway with no camera. I'll be fully up to speed and ready to capture some next year.
Wow, it was so good you could see them while driving? :O