The sky at night

[Basher]

Anyone spotted the meteor shower we're supposed to see tonight.
Saw on the news tonight that southern regions will be rather cloudy with little chance of viewing.
Nothern areas stand a much better chance of seeing them.

Any of our more northern and Scottish members seen owt?

 

[CliveW]

Nothing yet. I've just been out, but it's supposed to be at it's best around midnight. There's still a fair bit of light in the northern sky and not too dark yet.

 

[haplesshacker]

We've got 95% cloud cover down here. Oh, and a shed load of light pollution!

 

[Leftie]

Usually best after midnight - except here in the deep south where it is always guaranteed to be cloudy on the night of a good meteor storm.

 

[Imurg]

Raining here so no chance at all. Always seems to rain here when these things are on.

 

[CliveW]

I have spent the last hour and half star gazing and I saw one meteorite. Still, I suppose it's better than watching telly.

 

[Herbie]

I have seen one whizzing by and thats it!

 

[Adrena1in]

The Perseid meteor shower lasts from the end of July to near the end of August...it just peaked the other night. You should still see plenty if you go out around midnight, as long as the skies are clear.

I set my camera up on Tuesday night and left it running, taking about 800 30-second shots of the skies. Captured a few meteors, but since I'd forgotten to focus the camera first it was all a bit of a waste of time really!

Put the images into an animation.

http://www.vimeo.com/6064087

Only good Perseid is at about 11 and a half seconds, at the very top of the screen. The streaks going from the top-right towards the bottom-left are planes.

 

[brendy]

Fantastic matey, the meteors are a split second long, how come there seems to be several frames capturing it?

I have a canon 1000d a 18-55 and a 70-200 lens. If I mount it onto my tripod, what settings do I need to capture these? as the night sky is one thing Ive never tried before.

 

[chrisj96]

good footage tim quite clear too.

 

[Adrena1in]

the meteors are a split second long, how come there seems to be several frames capturing it?

Only the ones that appear in a single frame are meteors...the rest are planes or satellites.

I tried a second animation the next night and captured two meteors, but they're quite hard to spot. I had to brighten all 300 images in the timelapse, so it ruined the quality a bit.

http://www.vimeo.com/6100374