Perseids 2016

[CuriousMike]

As a reminder, the 2016 Perseids are coming up in a few weeks.

They will peak the morning of August 12th in California - which essentially means, setting up Thursday night August 11th and running into the morning of the 12th.

I recognize it seems like every year we hear "it'll be spectacular" ... and we go out and see three meteors. But there's a chance this year it really will be spectacular.

The basics for me ( again, California ) are to be out between 10 pm and 2-3 a.m.
The moon is full(ish), but sets in the SW around 12:30 a.m.
The Perseids emmit from the N-NE - so, almost opposite the moon.

A guy in the astrophotography forum on DPR put up an article with hints; its somewhat technical and dense but provides a few good pointers.
http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/meteor.photography/

Remember, we're entering into the Perseids now ( started the 17th).
So, it's possible to start looking for them now (but the moon is coming up in the NE so will likely mitigate the view somewhat.)

"They will be in "outburst" in 2016, which means they'll appear at double the usual rates.
"This year, instead of seeing about 80 Perseids per hour, the rate could top 150 and even approach 200 meteors per hour," Cooke said. It's the first such outburst since 2009."
http://www.space.com/32868-perseid-meteor-shower-guide.html


I had fun last year as a meteor newby, and plan on giving it another go this year.

 

[CuriousMike]

A little more than a week to go.

Last year:

This year:

 

[EOM]

Mike what is that website you showed me last year with a map of the light pollution and how far to get out? I MIGHT be in CA next week but maybe in TX, we'll see....
I'm here in the bay area for a few days... .whew it's smoggy recently.... no wonder they've had so many spare the air days!

 

[CuriousMike]

I use this ( it may be out of date, but it's good enough for approximation )
http://www.jshine.net/astronomy/dark_sky/


There has been a MASSIVE fire in Moterey that is going up into the atmosphere and dumping back onto the Bay Area. I'm somewhat worried it'll screw up Mt. Hamilton.

I have an inkling to go back to Glacier Point in Yosemite because i've got a feeling this is going to be teh awesome.
The downside to Glacier Point is the unknown weather - it could be cloudly in the valley.

 

[CuriousMike]

Oh - if you're in CA, hit me up. And don't bring your gimped gear. Bring all your gear and all your tripods.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Going camping on the 8th, slightly early, but hoping to get lucky and catch some, but I'll be happy if it's simply clear skies at all. I went camping earlier and the bugs were too bad and it was not clear enough anyway. If it's clear this time I'm going to burn some Tim Horton's coffee trays (new trick I recently discovered) to try to drive the bugs out while I take star pics.

I have a nice wide angle lens this year too, so catch more sky.

I'm off all of that week too, so will have plenty of opportunity later.

 

[CuriousMike]

Going camping on the 8th, slightly early,

Yes, it'll be early, but you'll benefit because the crescent moon will set earlier.
The night of the 11th->12th, the moon won't set until after midnight.

Be sure to look NorthEast.

Practice your infinity focus.

 

[EOM]

Oh - if you're in CA, hit me up. And don't bring your gimped gear. Bring all your gear and all your tripods.

Hey listen! It was spur of the moment and I hadn't PLANNED on doing night photography.....

I think i am going to be in TX... it's looking like a 3 hour drive to get into the dark from Dallas

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yes, it'll be early, but you'll benefit because the crescent moon will set earlier.
The night of the 11th->12th, the moon won't set until after midnight.

Be sure to look NorthEast.

Practice your infinity focus.

Yeah the sky is at it's darkest around midnight anyway, at 10 the sun is still going down, 11ish there's still a faint light then midnight is dark, then sun starts to come back around 3. so idealy I'll probably do it around 12:00-1:00ish. That's if I don't get eaten alive by mosquitoes. They're super bad this year.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Saw a couple when I was out camping, but my position and trees was not ideal to look in the proper direction. While taking some general star photography, I did manage to capture a small one though: Can see a very feint line about a bit higher than the middle.



In the next few days I will be going out in the field in front of my house to catch some at their peak. it's still early now but they are starting.

 

[CuriousMike]

Saw a couple when I was out camping, but my position and trees was not ideal to look in the proper direction. While taking some general star photography, I did manage to capture a small one though: Can see a very feint line about a bit higher than the middle.



In the next few days I will be going out in the field in front of my house to catch some at their peak. it's still early now but they are starting.

Nice ! Next time, boost your ISO a bit - you took that at ISO 100 - if you took it at ISO 800 or 1600 that meteor would be much brighter.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Hey listen! It was spur of the moment and I hadn't PLANNED on doing night photography.....

I think i am going to be in TX... it's looking like a 3 hour drive to get into the dark from Dallas

I am south of dfw a little. I know of two little bitty towns that you can see the stars and even nebula. Almost as clear as Fort Davis observatory in Tx. One is Bono tx one hour from Dallas. The other is Rainbow Tx, it's 1 hour 15 minutes from Dallas and has a little better view than Bono. I drove out there myself last weekend just to admire the night sky.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Nice ! Next time, boost your ISO a bit - you took that at ISO 100 - if you took it at ISO 800 or 1600 that meteor would be much brighter.

Yeah I tend to play around with ISO a bit, I took some others at around 400. Problem is I find it starts to be a bit too grainy and start to look like a dot matrix print out if I go too high so I try to go as low as reasonably possible.


One question, when they say the peak is on the 12, do they mean the day of the 12, or like past midnight when it becomes the 12? Ex: Is it Friday night, or Tuesday night? Either way I'll probably go check it out around that time anyway. I'm off this week so I can stay up late but they want me to go work at a camp, trying to coordinate that so I can be in town and able to stay up late for the peak days. I find 1-2am is where the sky is at it's darkest so it's a good time to go.

 

[EOM]

I am south of dfw a little. I know of two little bitty towns that you can see the stars and even nebula. Almost as clear as Fort Davis observatory in Tx. One is Bono tx one hour from Dallas. The other is Rainbow Tx, it's 1 hour 15 minutes from Dallas and has a little better view than Bono. I drove out there myself last weekend just to admire the night sky.

I was actually looking at going up to Antlers OK..... according to the site Mike mentioned, that's the darkest spot near me that's dark towards the north-east. Otherwise i'm driving down towards El Paso..... Based on the site Rainbow is still moderately bright.

 

[CuriousMike]

1. Yeah I tend to play around with ISO a bit, I took some others at around 400. Problem is I find it starts to be a bit too grainy
2. One question, when they say the peak is on the 12, do they mean the day of the 12, or like past midnight when it becomes the 12? .

1. At screen resolution, you should find ISO 800 to be acceptable. Meteors, while bright, are fast. You're going to miss a lot of meteors if you don't boost the ISO.
2. Go out Thursday night into Friday morning. For example, I'm heading out Thursday at 9pm to get to my location by 10:30 pm. I'll stay out until 3a.m. Friday morning.

 

[EOM]

Oh so we should be going out tonight? I thought the peak was tomorrow night

 

[CuriousMike]

Peak is (unfortunately) tonight. The problem is the "outburst" makes it even more unpredictable - it could be hot early.
The Perseids will be highest a couple hours before sunrise ... 3:30-4:30 a.m. is probably the safest. But I plan on doing something more like 10-2.

 

[Red Squirrel]

It's been cloudy and crap since yesterday, I might end up missing it this year :/ I really hope it clears up. But if it stays cool it means the mosquitoes won't be as bad, as well. Last year I got to see some decent ones at around 4-5am off peak. (was past the end) so maybe I'll get lucky this year, just need a clear night soonish. I went out a bit late last year though as the sun was starting to come up.

I did get lucky last year that there was slight northern lights though, one of my favorite pics I've captured of night sky:



What's interesting is the northern lights were so feint that I could not see them with naked eye, actually had to do a longer exposure to see them.

Here's one I caught that morning, when I went to bed I just set my camera to do long exposure time lapse:

 

[CuriousMike]

Your Northern Lights is nice -- thats what long exposure gets ya.

I'm a broken record, but this will be the last time
1. Up your ISO
2. Stop breaking the 500/focal length rule. In your Northern Lights shot, you shot for 30 seconds at 35mm * 1.5 = 50mm. 500/50mm = 10 seconds before you see star trailing. Your image looks soft because you've exposed for 30 seconds and the max time for pinpoint sharp image is 10.
You shot at ISO 250 - you could easily shoot at ISO 800 and get the same shot, but sharper.
30/2 = 15 seconds = going to ISO 400
15/2 = 7 seconds = going to ISO 800

BTW, going out at 3-4 a.m. is considered the BEST time because the Perseids will be at the highest and the sky is the darkest.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Still cloudy and raining, and Saturday I have to get up early so can't stay up late tomorrow night if it's clear, so think I'm going to miss out. :/ If Saturday night is clear then I may get lucky. After that, I'm working non stop for 10 days so will definitely miss out. Though since I'll be working night shift later in the week, I could probably put my camera on the roof at work in time lapse mode, and maybe get lucky and catch the tail end of it.

This may be fit for a separate topic on it's own but is there a trick for doing a time lapse of sun set/rise without getting over exposure? Idealy you don't want to use auto mode for time lapse.

 

[Nohr]

Here's the best two that I caught this morning between 4-5am. It's times like these that I could use something wider than my kit lens. I'm on a trip so these are quick and dirty edits from my laptop.


Perseid & Cepheus


Perseid & Cepheus

 

[Nohr]

Here's one more from last night. I was hoping for a better one but I think the shower is fizzling out.


Perseid Meteor over Palm Trees

 

[Red Squirrel]

Nice shots. I mostly missed out this year due to clouds, if it was clear tonight I'd probably stay up late to try to capture some and just skip church tomorrow. After that, I have to work for 10 days straight so no go after that.

The one I got in day light last year is still my best one so far. I saw one of those at night last year but had camera pointed the other way at the time so did not catch it.

 

[Nohr]

Thanks! It's a little frustrating to see a nice one and know your camera is looking the other way. Maybe I should give it one more try tonight..

 

[CuriousMike]

I went out Thursday night - cameras click-clacked from 10pm to 3:15 a.m.
I went out Friday night - cameras click-clacked from 10:30 pm to 3:30 a.m.

I saw a lot of meteors - many shooting along the horizon. Good for viewing, poor for photos.

Light pollution and moon pollution were a serious downer this year ( for photos ) compared to last year.

Thursday night was much more active than Friday - on Thursday night, we had 4-5 Holy Sh!t's and 2 Holy F!cks !

The first Holy F!ck was one that broke apart as it fell vertically to the horizon - spectacular.
The second Holy F!ck was ... my god. It was directly over head, and the ground lit up.
The tail lingered for at least 2-3 seconds. It was amazeballs.

Of course I caught zero of these major meteors !

I find my editing skills are really holding me back - I created this composite from about 10pm until 1a.m. when the moon was damn near making it look like daylight. Exposures after the moon went down... I can't get them to blend without looking terrabad.
As it is, compositing this is full of imperfections but still representative of the orientation.

Note that Andromeda is in the top-middle.

The moon, just crushing us the first few hours

My friend brought his telescopes. Mars and Saturn were next to the moon. He'd never found Andromeda before, so we got him dialed in on that.

The seven sisters = Pleaides

There had to have been 500+ people at the observatory which is nuts. People had their sleeping bags on the road.
This shot was taken around 4a.m. as people were descending.

Again

Andromeda - the images are in focus, but my ability to use DSS to stack is crap.