Last night was a meteor shower event referred to as "Perseids" because of where it appears to radiate from, the constellation Perseus, whereupon the Earth passes through the dusty remains of the comet Swift-Tuttle. If you missed it, the next event (Orionids) occurs the night of 20 Oct 2012, so get ready!
Post your favorite star/meteor shot in this thread from your album; any space shot you particularly like will do. If you don't have one, challenge yourself to take one; it can be pretty gratifying! Let's generate some interest for the next event in October!
I only heard about this shower, this morning... I'm gonna' mark my calendar for October. The bummer is, is it was a perfectly clear night in Western Washington and I coulda' gone somewhere to shoot it. Great picture, my dear.
@grizzlysghost I'm a bit jealous of those of you that can do these incredible night shots! I'd have to drive out to the desert to do these, as living along the coastline doesn't work so well for these. This is a stunning and amazing photo Aaron, it's on my very long bucket list to try!
I too did not get any shots of the meteors, this is the best shot I got, which does not compare to the ones above. Great shots everyone one and I will have to try again in October.
just as an fyi, the Perseids have a very wide peak, so while last night was the peak, a week on either side will likely produce meteors, of course, the further away from the peak, the fewer you're likely to see.
There should still be plenty of meteors visible tonight. I've lost my tripod plate that connects the camera to it so I've gotta try with a cheap 6 inch table top tripod
It was killing me when I would see a meteor, but just wasn't getting it on film last night!! Awesome shot @grizzlysghost! I will have to try again. I did take this long exposure last night.
Argh...I was so frustrated last night. I saw some awesome streaks right across my viewfinder but the sensor didn't pick them up. I was on bulb with an ISO of 500 and using anywhere between f/3.5 to f/8. I left the shutter open anywhere from 49 to 120 seconds without any success. What am I doing wrong?
@grizzlysghost
amazing star trails , I am marking this date as well, but will have to leave the city as the light pollution will be too much I think. This is on my bucket list, any tips for first timers??
@trbo The longer you leave the shutter open, the more dim your meteor becomes because the streak it left is being slowly overwritten by the dark sky. Try it again with shorter shutter speeds (I was using 20 second exposures). And since I had shortened it to 20 seconds, I had to increase my ISO to about 1600 so I could still see the trees and mountains in the the foreground.
This thread depresses me, I was out last night/this morning attempting to get shots, and they all turned out pretty bad. The meteors were certainly cool to see though.
So so so jealous of all of you who got to see these! I'm in Miami and we had a cloud filled sky all night. I have seen a meteor shower before, it is the most amazing experience.
@grizzlysghost Awesome, thanks Aaron. I will give it another try tonight even though I have work early tomorrow it should be worth it. I can always sleep on the bus. :-)
@grizzlysghost@trbo That's not quite true. Darkness will never 'overwrite' light on a camera sensor -- a sensor, exactly like film, simply records light that hits it while the shutter is open, it doesn't record the absence of light. If you put the camera in a totally dark room, opened the shutter, and fired a flashgun into the room, it doesn't matter if you leave the shutter open for 1 second or 1 week after you've done that, the photo (except for noise issues) would be identical.
The only way 'overwriting' of a meteor streak would happen is if you were in an area with a lot of radiant light, for example light pollution near a city. Should you leave the shutter open too long then the city lights reflecting off particles in the atmosphere would eventually cause more light to hit the camera than the meteor streak had, which would effectively mask it. However, for this to happen you'd need a very long exposure, and the resultant photos would have a very distinct orange glow.
Of course, the longer you leave the shutter open, the more noise is recorded by the sensor, which can be a reason to reduce shutter speed and/or stack images, but you'll never (or at least, not without a very long exposure) generate enough noise to significantly conceal a streak that you would have captured with a shorter exposure. This certainly wouldn't have happened with the settings that Travis used, nor would reducing the shutter speed have altered the absence of streaks on his captured images.
The usual problem with failing to capture meteor streaks is simply that the camera is not gathering enough light from the streak. Remember, the vast majority of meteor streaks are very faint light sources moving very quickly. Because it gives off very little light, and is moving quickly, the amount of light that will hit any one point on the camera sensor is extremely little. This is the opposite of star trail photography, where the light from the stars travels across the sensor very slowly as the earth rotates, meaning each star is projecting light onto the same point on the sensor for a long period.
I suspect Travis's problem was using far too low an ISO setting -- the camera wasn't set up to be sensitive enough for the streak to be captured. You really need an ISO setting of at least 1600 combined with a wide aperture (probably as wide as your lens will allow), and even then, you will only capture the very brightest streaks. If you have a modern full-frame camera like a 5D MkIII or D800 that can handle seriously high ISO settings gracefully, and a f/1.2 lens, then try setting it at ISO 6400 or above at f/1.2 and you'll pick up hundreds -- sadly not many people have that kind of equipment!
@abirkill This helps a ton. I am shooting with my Canon 60D with my 18mm at f/3.5 and yes the ISO was much lower than your suggestion. I know this is a crop sensor, but it does do high ISO somewhat well but getting noisy, especially at 12,800.
Tonight I will throw my nifty fifty (50mm f/1.8) on and bump up the ISO to 6400 and see what happens. Now I do lose most of my wider angle, so hopefully I am pointed at the right spot at the right time.
How long can I leave the shutter open at this high of an ISO, or is that going to be trial and error play since it matters on ambient light or light pollution from the city (Seattle), of which I am only about 25 miles outside of?
@trbo I'd probably stick with the 18mm at f/3.5, but at a much higher ISO -- the 50mm will cover a relatively narrow area of sky so it might be a tad frustrating. No harm in trying both though!
I suspect at 6400 ISO on a 60D you'd be best not to exceed 20-30 seconds, more for noise issues rather than light pollution per-se.
Make sure you know about your camera's built-in noise cancellation feature -- you have three settings, On, Auto and Off, and I think Auto is default -- this means that the camera will take a 'dark image' with the shutter closed after your exposure. The idea of this is that it captures any standard noise patterns, which it then subtracts from the image you took. It's a useful feature, but it's confusing if you've never experienced it before, as the camera will appear to 'lock up' after you've taken your shot, for the same duration (i.e. if you do a 30 second exposure, it will then not allow you to do anything for a further 30 seconds afterwards). If it's on Auto, shooting at ISO 6400 for several seconds will almost certainly trigger it.
Also, remember that, from solely the point of view of the meteor, in the same way it doesn't matter how long your exposure is, it also doesn't matter how short your exposure is (within reason). The meteor will be visible generally for a couple of seconds at most, so as long as the shutter is open for those two seconds, you've captured it -- only the aperture and ISO will affect how bright it is. This means that you can balance the background light using the shutter speed -- if you are taking 20 second exposures and the light pollution is too visible or the photo is too noisy, drop it down to 10 seconds. If you find that you want more detail from the stars, then you can increase it to 30 seconds. (This is exactly the same technique used to balance flash light output with ambient light when shooting portraits).
Wow these photos are amazing! @abirkill especially yours is incredible.
I'd never tried to photograph the stars before but I thought I'd give it a go over the meteorite shower. Unfortunately it got really cloudy so visibility was bad and I didn't manage to see any after I started shooting. Any feedback on my photo would be much appreciated, I took @grizzlysghost advice on using a 20second exposure.
@cgarner To the right of your photo there is a "Share" section. There is a box a little lower in this section that mentions "Copy and paste code". Do just that; copy the weird code in that box (quite long) and paste it into a discussion :)
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amazing star trails , I am marking this date as well, but will have to leave the city as the light pollution will be too much I think. This is on my bucket list, any tips for first timers??
The only way 'overwriting' of a meteor streak would happen is if you were in an area with a lot of radiant light, for example light pollution near a city. Should you leave the shutter open too long then the city lights reflecting off particles in the atmosphere would eventually cause more light to hit the camera than the meteor streak had, which would effectively mask it. However, for this to happen you'd need a very long exposure, and the resultant photos would have a very distinct orange glow.
Of course, the longer you leave the shutter open, the more noise is recorded by the sensor, which can be a reason to reduce shutter speed and/or stack images, but you'll never (or at least, not without a very long exposure) generate enough noise to significantly conceal a streak that you would have captured with a shorter exposure. This certainly wouldn't have happened with the settings that Travis used, nor would reducing the shutter speed have altered the absence of streaks on his captured images.
The usual problem with failing to capture meteor streaks is simply that the camera is not gathering enough light from the streak. Remember, the vast majority of meteor streaks are very faint light sources moving very quickly. Because it gives off very little light, and is moving quickly, the amount of light that will hit any one point on the camera sensor is extremely little. This is the opposite of star trail photography, where the light from the stars travels across the sensor very slowly as the earth rotates, meaning each star is projecting light onto the same point on the sensor for a long period.
I suspect Travis's problem was using far too low an ISO setting -- the camera wasn't set up to be sensitive enough for the streak to be captured. You really need an ISO setting of at least 1600 combined with a wide aperture (probably as wide as your lens will allow), and even then, you will only capture the very brightest streaks. If you have a modern full-frame camera like a 5D MkIII or D800 that can handle seriously high ISO settings gracefully, and a f/1.2 lens, then try setting it at ISO 6400 or above at f/1.2 and you'll pick up hundreds -- sadly not many people have that kind of equipment!
Tonight I will throw my nifty fifty (50mm f/1.8) on and bump up the ISO to 6400 and see what happens. Now I do lose most of my wider angle, so hopefully I am pointed at the right spot at the right time.
How long can I leave the shutter open at this high of an ISO, or is that going to be trial and error play since it matters on ambient light or light pollution from the city (Seattle), of which I am only about 25 miles outside of?
I suspect at 6400 ISO on a 60D you'd be best not to exceed 20-30 seconds, more for noise issues rather than light pollution per-se.
Make sure you know about your camera's built-in noise cancellation feature -- you have three settings, On, Auto and Off, and I think Auto is default -- this means that the camera will take a 'dark image' with the shutter closed after your exposure. The idea of this is that it captures any standard noise patterns, which it then subtracts from the image you took. It's a useful feature, but it's confusing if you've never experienced it before, as the camera will appear to 'lock up' after you've taken your shot, for the same duration (i.e. if you do a 30 second exposure, it will then not allow you to do anything for a further 30 seconds afterwards). If it's on Auto, shooting at ISO 6400 for several seconds will almost certainly trigger it.
Also, remember that, from solely the point of view of the meteor, in the same way it doesn't matter how long your exposure is, it also doesn't matter how short your exposure is (within reason). The meteor will be visible generally for a couple of seconds at most, so as long as the shutter is open for those two seconds, you've captured it -- only the aperture and ISO will affect how bright it is. This means that you can balance the background light using the shutter speed -- if you are taking 20 second exposures and the light pollution is too visible or the photo is too noisy, drop it down to 10 seconds. If you find that you want more detail from the stars, then you can increase it to 30 seconds. (This is exactly the same technique used to balance flash light output with ambient light when shooting portraits).
I was out early this morning and didn't capture a meteor, but saw lots of them. Here are my trials from this morning:
I'd never tried to photograph the stars before but I thought I'd give it a go over the meteorite shower. Unfortunately it got really cloudy so visibility was bad and I didn't manage to see any after I started shooting. Any feedback on my photo would be much appreciated, I took @grizzlysghost advice on using a 20second exposure.
http://365project.org/cgarner/365/2012-08-12