Perseids

[CuriousMike]

After going thru my 25GB of photos spanning three camera's, I ended up with about two dozen shots with meteors.
Of those, maybe 5-8 are actually good.
I didn't nail *the shot.*
While I thought I'd be disappointed if I left without nailing *the shot*, I found that the experience of witnessing the spectacle was far more valuable. There were *genuinely* some "HOLY SH!4" moments.

Thanks again to Ray[EOM] for protecting me from the coyotes, wild boar and the jack-rabbit who can make a surprisingly ominous sound like a boar sneaking up on you.

The shot that was almost "the shot" was actually taken with my 50mm on Henri -- so, 75mm. It *just* clipped the entire length of the meteor.

Another from the 50mm (75) that almost included the entire event..

The wide shots were able to capture entire events, but seem a little more... impersonal ?

Ray helped me locate where Andromeda is supposed to be - and I really wasn't sure that we had found it. After verifying with Stellarium, we hit it. But in order to get an actual useable image, I would have needed to stack multiple images so you could get the detail of the rim around the galaxy. Nonetheless, I have *something*... even if it's just a blob of bright-star-looking-blob

Finally, a shot of the MilkyWay before we left

Oh... ok, this is one of Ray [EOM] photo-bombing the galaxy...

 

[Red Squirrel]

Woah nice pics! I found that "something" too, it almost looks like a galaxy or something, not sure what it actually is.



Lower right corner

 

[CuriousMike]

Red,
You're shooting 30 seconds, @ f1.8, ISO 250, at 35mm.
On a D7000 crop sensor.

The rule is 500/focal length.

So, 500 / (35*1.5) = 500/ 52.5 = 9 seconds maximum shutter speed before you see blur.

You're significantly leaving the shutter open too long.
And you're using too little ISO.

The EXIF says you're in Manual mode - so, you should try
ISO 1600, 10 seconds, f/1.8
My guess is you'll get more stars in sharper focus ( assuming you're getting your manual focus correct, and that's a bitch. Generally, you set the focus to infinity, then back it off a smidge.)

And I think you have Andromeda there - there's a triangle of stars to the left of it that's pointing to it.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I was purposely shooting that long so I can catch the meteorites but yeah been experimenting with ISO as well. Thing with ISO once you get into the 1000's it's really grainy. What I was doing to set focus was setting ISO to max, then use LCD to try to dial in at a distant street light. I managed to get a pretty decent focus, better than when I was in the bush as I had no distant object to try to focus on.

This one I think I had set ISO higher and shutter shorter: Can't recall if I changed anything else.



So less star trails.

 

[CuriousMike]

Thing with ISO once you get into the 1000's it's really grainy.

You don't notice the grain when resized for the web.
You do notice the blur when resized for the web.

Knock yourself out.

 

[CountZero]

After going thru my 25GB of photos spanning three camera's, I ended up with about two dozen shots with meteors.
Of those, maybe 5-8 are actually good.
I didn't nail *the shot.*
While I thought I'd be disappointed if I left without nailing *the shot*, I found that the experience of witnessing the spectacle was far more valuable. There were *genuinely* some "HOLY SH!4" moments.

Thanks again to Ray[EOM] for protecting me from the coyotes, wild boar and the jack-rabbit who can make a surprisingly ominous sound like a boar sneaking up on you.

The shot that was almost "the shot" was actually taken with my 50mm on Henri -- so, 75mm. It *just* clipped the entire length of the meteor.

Another from the 50mm (75) that almost included the entire event..

The wide shots were able to capture entire events, but seem a little more... impersonal ?

Ray helped me locate where Andromeda is supposed to be - and I really wasn't sure that we had found it. After verifying with Stellarium, we hit it. But in order to get an actual useable image, I would have needed to stack multiple images so you could get the detail of the rim around the galaxy. Nonetheless, I have *something*... even if it's just a blob of bright-star-looking-blob

Finally, a shot of the MilkyWay before we left

Oh... ok, this is one of Ray [EOM] photo-bombing the galaxy...

So jealous of the milky way shot. Spent the night at Pt. Reyes recently and was hoping that the light pollution would be low enough to get some milky way shots but it was cloudy

 

[CuriousMike]

So jealous of the milky way shot. Spent the night at Pt. Reyes recently and was hoping that the light pollution would be low enough to get some milky way shots but it was cloudy

The coast always holds promise of dark skies - but you have to balance that out with cloud or fog.

 

[Spoooon]

Great shots curious! Color me jealous.

 

[EOM]

So after 2 months of chaos I finally had a chance to get a look at the pictures I took. None came out half as well as Mike's but had a few interesting ones.

Only reason three of these caught my eye was the blue streaks..... not sure what those are. It's not camera shake or motion blur since the rest of the stars in the shot look okay. Last shot was apparently most of the way through the interval when I got blasted with red light...

I'll likely try and get a few quick time lapse GIFs out of these, but I didn't have the right gear on me at the time to get sweet pictures like Mike

 

[CuriousMike]

i think you found the intergalactic cobweb !

 

[EOM]

i think you found the intergalactic cobweb !

Kinda weird that it eminated from the same star each time but the framing was different....


Is that Vega (of Lyra )? ? The bright star it seems to originate from?