Weather forecast was cloudy until midnight, clear until dawn, cloudy again.
Actual was clear until 1am, heavy to sporadic cloud until 3:45, clear until 30 min before dawn, then cloudy!
So my best times for viewing were poor. I actually snoozed when the cloud cover looked to be worsening.
But I did see probably 20+ Geminids over the entire period plus sporadics. Some nice and bright. Had the camera clicking away taking 28 sec exposures every 1 min 10 sec over some six hours. I tried different directions. In 342 exposures I have....... wait for it...... 1 Geminid (and many aircraft!).
Have attached the Geminid image I captured. In this case, I had Castor and Pollux in the frame. Almost headon meteors are slow and bright.
I'll have a better search of the other frames later.
Weather forecast was cloudy until midnight, clear until dawn, cloudy again.
Actual was clear until 1am, heavy to sporadic cloud until 3:45, clear until 30 min before dawn, then cloudy!
So my best times for viewing were poor. I actually snoozed when the cloud cover looked to be worsening.
But I did see probably 20+ Geminids over the entire period plus sporadics. Some nice and bright. Had the camera clicking away taking 28 sec exposures every 1 min 10 sec over some six hours. I tried different directions. In 342 exposures I have....... wait for it...... 1 Geminid (and many aircraft!).
Have attached the Geminid image I captured. In this case, I had Castor and Pollux in the frame. Almost headon meteors are slow and bright.
I'll have a better search of the other frames later.
.... 342 images and 1 meteor ..... I took 178 pics and no meteors!!!
Cloudy here last night though.
I had clear skies last night, although I didnt count the Gemenids and I saw a lot of sporadics. My estimates put it at 30+ an hour although we werent looking at all parts of the skies.
The highlight of the evening was a bright Gemenid which took about 7 seconds to go across the whole sky and it left a long smoky trail from horizon to horizon. I reckon that some of its micriscopic fragments may have made it to Earth.
I had clear skies last night, although I didnt count the Gemenids and I saw a lot of sporadics. My estimates put it at 30+ an hour although we werent looking at all parts of the skies.
The highlight of the evening was a bright Gemenid which took about 7 seconds to go across the whole sky and it left a long smoky trail from horizon to horizon. I reckon that some of its micriscopic fragments may have made it to Earth.
Good to hear you had some success Sean
Quote:
Originally Posted by erick
Another one! Through Orion.
Sorry for image - I have a fisheye attachment screwed to a 28mm file lens on a DSLR. Err - it doesn't work!
Wide open - 2.8 I think. (ISO 800) Do you think shutting it down might improve the outer part of the image, Roger? I don't think it did when I tried some daytime experiments.
Still, it was just a cheap experiment. I should really buy a proper Pentax fisheye for the K100D - if I get serious and rich! (Actually I want a good Pentax zoom first - the 18-55mm I think.)
Wide open - 2.8 I think. (ISO 800) Do you think shutting it down might improve the outer part of the image, Roger? I don't think it did when I tried some daytime experiments.
Still, it was just a cheap experiment. I should really buy a proper Pentax fisheye for the K100D - if I get serious and rich! (Actually I want a good Pentax zoom first - the 18-55mm I think.)
Stopping it down from F/2.8 should improve the image quality, but I found when trying to photograph the Geminids on Saturday night that I needed F/2.8 just to capture any, there were several that I saw but didn't capture when at F/4. So I think you're best to stick to F/2.8
Not sure. The image I put in the earlier post was shot with the fish-eye attachment removed - the film 28mm lens only. Not a bad image for the equipment and much better than with the fish-eye attached. Even if I crop what is not distorted (as in stars stretched into a line), the centre of the image is much poorer in quality. But I did the the attachment specifically to capture meteors. I'll make a movie of the aircraft transits and post it - quite amusing, the "curves" they fly!
Another very successful meteor Shower viewing session up here in Gove.
After what looked like being a totally clouded out session, the skies cleared completly at about 11pm.
I was able to view from out dark "Meteor Site" just 5 minutes from town. Saw aprox 75/hr between 11:45 and 12:45.
Some very impressive and bright, with the majority being fainter.
Was pleased that 3 others (Sue, Dolina & Jason) joined me based on my comments in passing a week ago, about going out for a look on Mon the 14th.
Certainly the biggest shower of the year and one that we were only able to see with TC Laurance drawing away all the wet season weather from our part of the NT.
I went up to a small beach in between cairns and port douglas on sunday night, with no light pollution.. just as we arived the cloud rolled in with a bit of rain, and 10 mins later it completely cleared..
set up a matress and stereo and saw around 100 from 1230 till 3am.. there was one massive one around 230am that really flared out..
was quite happy with our viewing!
i took a whole bunch of photo's but havent reviewed them yet..
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