Thursday, August 13, 2015

We Saw the Perseid Meteor Shower!

One of the biggest astronomical events of the summer season is the Perseid Meteor Shower.  We've never really seen it, so last night we sat out on the deck under a brilliant clear sky for an hour and watched for meteors.  We saw a lot, and I actually captured a couple of photos!

For all of these photos I had the camera set at a very high ISO, 6400, and used a 30 second exposure (on a tripod of course).  Did I tell you I have a new camera, and bought a remote, so I can set it up and just sit in a chair to control the shutter.  Works neat!

Another meteor.  We actually saw 20 or 30, of which perhaps 5 or 6 were really bright, with long trails.  But the camera only captures a small piece of the sky, here looking northeast toward the constellation Casiopeia,  the 'Big W', so I missed most of them with the camera.

Here's another photo from the night before when I was practicing.  I didn't see either of these very faint trails until I looked at this on the computer, but you can see one on the right, and one near the top.  The right hand one may be just a plane trail.

I was also practicing taking photos of the Milky Way, and was really pleased with the results.

This is an obvious plane track, with the beeping light, but the faint horizontal one above it is a meteor.  I got lots of plane tracks.  For my first real try at night sky photos, I'm happy, and I think I'm going to be trying this a lot more!

Linking to:

24 comments:

  1. Amazing photos, and yes you should do a lot more of those. Have a nice weekend!

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  2. You were very lucky! Regarding your question at my blog, the cross is down by the Ottawa Locks, between the Chateau Laurier and Parliament Hill, on the east side of the Canal.

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  3. Amazing...and I forgot to watch!

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  4. Yeah, you did it!!! Awesome shots, and congrats on actually capturing meteors. I had my camera set up and ready to go last night, but the sky didn't cooperate. These are really excellent shots.

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  5. It's so hard to get shots like that. Quite an accomplishment. Wish I could get such results.

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  6. Lucky you! Thanks for sharing. We snoozed so we lost.

    Worth a Thousand Words

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  7. You were so lucky! There is too much light pollution here to see anything.

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  8. You remind me that I forgot to watch. the first night was cloudy. However I have seen the meteor shower with clear skies.

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  9. I am SO IMPRESSED! Please take more, so I can enjoy them as much as I enjoyed these. :-)

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  10. Superb night sky photos. What is your new camera? A remote with tripod, the only way to go. Love those trails too.

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  11. Great photos, and I love that you captured the meteor shower. Well done!

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  12. Oh wow, these are reallt cool shots. We missed the meteor shower here. Awesome photos. Enjoy your weekend!

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  13. Nothing but lots of thick cloud and drizzle here so I enjoyed these excellent pictures.

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  14. Good for you, my friend...Great shots to treasure.

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  15. Very good shots. It's fun to take pix of night-time skies.

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  16. Awesome photos! We forgot to stay up, but our camera doesn't do well at night anyway. I'm impressed with what you were able to capture. Perfect for Skywatch!

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  17. Got yourself some great photos there especially with those meteors in them. Like you I am just new to this starry night photography as well. Pretty darn exciting stuff eh:))

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  18. Great captures! The hubby and I saw one, yes, only one. It was amazing though!

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  19. Really great photos of the meteors. It was cloudy here both nights and I wasn't about to be up at 3 in the morning to look for them. It's clear tonight so maybe I'll catch one with my eyes before bed.

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  20. Ohh I feel so jealous now, this is just an amazingly wonderful night to remember. How did I not know about this (I wonder if it would have been seen the same at where I was).
    Great news about your new camera and remote too. New gadgets always make wonders :)

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  21. Amazing !!
    Love these meteor showers ..too bad to say that our night sky is badly polluted by light.

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