Perseids Meteor Shower

On the 12th August, I photographed the Perseids meteor shower. This meteor shower happens once a year, but this was the first time I had a go at photographing it.
I pointed my camera in one area and left it there for over 3hrs, taking one photograph every 30 seconds.
There were big ones shooting by overhead, out of my cameras field of view, but I just left it pointing in the same place. I treated it like photographing wildlife, you can chase around trying to get the ultimate shot, when all you have to do is stay in one place and wait for it to come to you.

Photographed over the Forest of Dean at 23:49 on 12.08.2010.

Camera settings used....

Focal Length: 18mm
Manual Exposure
Manual Focus
Shutter Speed: 30 seconds
A/V: f/3.5
ISO: 1600
RAW


This is the typical faint streak we normally see. Small particles burning up through our atmosphere.





This was a biggy! When this meteor came burning through our atmosphere it lit up like a white fireball, which lasted around two seconds, hence the light generated.
My patience had paid off as it happened right where my camera was pointing. I have photographed lightning before and I felt the same feeling from this as I do when a big bolt of lightning explodes in front of my camera.
You can sit there all night and not capture this, so I was well chuffed.



Rob

The Alien Planet

About 30min ago I was sat with a nice cold ale when I suddenly remembered that someone had told me to look out for the planet Mars tonight. They told me that it would be visible to the left of the full moon.

So out I went, in the snow and sure enough there it was shining away.

This pic is over exposed purposely to highlight Mars, which is on the left, I hope!


I think you know what this is!

Mars. I tried to get it sharp, but it was just that little bit too far away!!!

So I cropped it instead. Sorry about the pixels, but this is a 10MB file cropped to a couple of mm.

Rob

Insect Invasion

Here is a pic movie I put together showing our insect world, with a few other surprises along the way!

All pics by me except the space, planet and volcanic ones, lol.

Click play below and don't forget to turn the volume up!