Perseid Meteor Shower Aug. 11-12 2013
- Thread starter jrista
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Here's one of the shots from Saturday night/Sunday morning, up in Yosemite; please don't be too harsh, it was my first time trying this kind of thing. I think some of the warmer colors & haze on the horizon were due to some local fires. I used a lot higher ISO because I was shooting for timelapse video and wanted the milky way moving in it. Shot this in tungsten after reading that somewhere on the net, but now I wonder if it's too blue. Unfortunately, there were some really good streaking meteors leaving glowing trails that were overhead or otherwise not in front of my lens, even though this was 14mm.
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Cali_PH said:
Great shot! Looks like you had some nice, dark skies. I would say 14mm is a great focal length for wide field night sky photography.
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Cali_PH said:
At the risk of being criticized by the landscape photo police, you should have tried turning the camera sideways...since you are saying you missed some meteors overhead.
The color temperature of your Milky Way indeed is far too cool, but since it was intentional, I suppose it's a valid take on it. I've seen this look before. It's quite a nice shot...certainly the blue hue is appealing and draws one into the image. Of course if it's shot in RAW you can tweak on the color temperature however you wish later on.
If you are saying this was your first night sky shot...like ever...WOW that's quite a good result, no doubts about that!! You're on your way. I envy your Yosemite visit. It is a very highly traffic'ed park, though. For good reason, of course.
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Granted, this was over the course a few hours, but they were all from the same night. This was the first time I've seen or had a chance to shoot any meteors-- are they normally roughly in the same direction? I was a bit surprised with how scattered some of them seemed.
jrista said:
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rpt said:The earth rotates 15 degrees every hour so how many hours were you out? About 3 or so I am guessing looking at the variation in the angle of the streaks...
I like the picture
Thanks! And good guess, I think the pictures spanned from roughly 10:30 to about 1 AM or so. It was quite the show
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Schruminator said:
Meteors in a given shower all radiate from the same point in the sky...called the "radiant". The Perseids are so named because their radiant is in the constellation Perseus. Most radiants are named after constellations, stars, star clusters, etc. If you point your camera at the radiant, then you usually get meteors streaking out from that point. Point the camera some other direction, and meteors will either streak across or streak down. Any other meteors that seem to come from elsewhere would be isolated ones, or possibly from another concurrent shower (which actually happens, particularly in August, however most other showers besides the big four, Perseids, Leonids, Orionids, Geminids, usually have very low ZHR, or Zenithal Hourly Rate...the number of meteors per hour.)
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Schruminator said:rpt said:The earth rotates 15 degrees every hour so how many hours were you out? About 3 or so I am guessing looking at the variation in the angle of the streaks...
I like the picture
Thanks! And good guess, I think the pictures spanned from roughly 10:30 to about 1 AM or so. It was quite the show
The monsoon season (English for mausam {used both in Hindi and Urdu} - Seasons or probably a better translation is weather...) here in India - so clouds and rain! Well, I'd prefer rain to a shower of comet tail...
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jrista said:
Thank you! Yes we did, no moon, far from major light sources
I must admit, I did try to play with contrast, black etc. to try to emphasize the meteors. I didn't know about the meteor-to-star light ratio you mentioned earlier, so I was simply shooting in 25-30 second bursts. Next time I'll change it up!CarlTN said:
I had considered that, but to be more specific, the best ones we missed were all over; far to the left, right, so far overhead they were almost behind me, etc., so I left it. Plus I was shooting for timelapse, which I'll try to add shortly. What I did do is stop shooting at one point, and angle my camera much higher.
And yes, I think the blue helps emphasize the stars/meteors, although I suppose some may disagree. I also prefer a bluer look than a warmer one; I wonder if people that prefer a warmer is partly because they're used to being closer to light pollution? And I did shoot in RAW, so I can tweak this repeatedly. Which I'll probably do, because I know I could edit the shots better than I did.
Thank you! I mainly shoot landscape and am used to some techniques which help (mirror lock up, on a tripod, shutter release, manual focus etc), plus I have shot at night before; some steel wool, light painting, catching streaks of car lights, stuff like that. But this was my first time trying to milky way & meteor shots. It's kind of silly that it is, since I have regular access to Yosemite (I can reach the entrance in about an hour), and I've been to places like Arches & Zion. I'll definitely try to do more night photography in the future & get better at it.
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Here's a video of two timelapses I shot this weekend. Since the best & brightest streaks were 'off camera' I stopped part way through and tilted my camera up in hopes of catching more, although I didn't succeed. Still, I captured lots of the smaller streaks. Perseids was in the upper left, but we also saw a surprising number of meteors from other directions.
The lower right bump is Half Dome; you can see a couple of people coming down from it at the beginning and someone climb up & walk around on top later.
Done with some top-notch video software...Windows Movie Maker
The lower right bump is Half Dome; you can see a couple of people coming down from it at the beginning and someone climb up & walk around on top later.
Done with some top-notch video software...Windows Movie Maker
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Cali_PH said:jrista said:
Thank you! Yes we did, no moon, far from major light sources
I guess it really depends on what your goals are as far as the ratio goes. If you want to include the milky way, and have the advantage of really dark skies, you could probably get away with a lot longer than 4-6 seconds. I don't really have any light-pollution-free dark areas within a reasonable driving distance, so shorter has been better for me so far. Seeing Cali_PH's timelapse, if you have nice, dark skies and want the milky way to be bright, I would say go for 20-30 seconds.
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I can't seem to get the video to play but if the pics with it are any indication I bet its great. I think the main key to the exposure time is to get the background off the bottom without clipping the top to much, which means the darker the sky the longer your exposure for any given iso. I have caught satellites on 3 min exposures that you couldn't see by eye that completely crossed the frame. Try a long exposure pointing towards Orion, its almost impossible to not catch a satellite in that part of the sky, at least for me.
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Schruminator said:
very nice, I thought it always was cloudy in the UK. You a Tulsa guy or just a grad? I am just north of Tulsa.
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niteclicks said:
Yeah, the UK can have some very pleasant weather but it is hit and miss. So when I saw we'd have clear skies, I knew I had to venture out for sure. Otherwise I'm a Tulsa grad and I have been living in the UK for 3+ years, but I'll be moving back to Tulsa in a few months if all goes well.
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AWESOMECali_PH said:Here's a video of two timelapses I shot this weekend.
Done with some top-notch video software...Windows Movie Maker
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LOLID said:
I would be willing to bet you couldn't replicate how a meteor shower actually looks that way.
It isn't just about getting a photo, either. Its about watching a meteor shower. If you don't go out and watch it, you miss out on the chance to see hunks of space rock burn up as they enter the atmosphere at 30,000 miles per hour, or even better, see a bolide explode once it enters the atmosphere (a fairly rare event.)
You would also be stuck with the fact that your ultimately lying about your work. ;P
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