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Archive 2016 · Perseids from Old Rag

dsjtecserv
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Perseids from Old Rag

Even though it was the middle of the work week and hot and humid as it gets in this area, I took a mind to climb Old Rag, my favorite mountain in Shenandoah National Park, in search of dark skies for the Perseid meteor shower. Old Rag is topped by rounded boulders and slabs that drop off to cliffs, so it affords a great view to the west, north and east. I aimed my 14 mm f/2.8 to the northeast toward Perseus (which unfortunately is looking directly back at the Washington DC area), and set the 5DSr on continuous mode for 30 sec exposures at 3200. I let it run from about 11:30 p.m. to about 5:30 a.m., while I snoozed on the rocks, waking up occasionally to change a battery or card. Of the roughly 600 resulting shots, 42 had at least one meteor trail (and a whole lot more had aircraft trails). This is a composite of 40 of those, some of which are pretty small and probably won't show up at this size.

Also included is a detail of part of the sky, showing the characteristic colors of the meteors as they first hit the atmosphere (green) and decay (red).
http://www.pbase.com/dsjtecserv/image/163870168/original.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/dsjtecserv/image/163870185/original.jpg
Comments and suggestions welcome.

Dave

Aug 14, 2016 at 11:24 AM

SidewinderX
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Perseids from Old Rag

Great shots! I love Old Rag -- what time did you hike up there?

Aug 14, 2016 at 05:09 PM

dsjtecserv
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Perseids from Old Rag

Thanks, SidewinderX. I left a little late and it took me an hour to get out of the DC area, so I didn't reach the summit until right at sunset. But I had a few hours while the moon was still high to shoot the rocks by moonlight. I love Old Rag too -- it is a different experience every time I go up it!

Dave

Aug 14, 2016 at 05:22 PM

DaleBerlin
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Perseids from Old Rag

Bravo, fantastic work!

Aug 14, 2016 at 06:05 PM

sachman
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Perseids from Old Rag

Love it!

Aug 14, 2016 at 09:55 PM

bill s
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Perseids from Old Rag

How very cool! I love excellent images such as these!!

Aug 15, 2016 at 12:55 AM

dgdg
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Perseids from Old Rag

Wonderful shots Dave.
You really captured the radiant well. If I were to go there I always envisioned putting the valley in the foreground like you did.
Great color in the meteors. Even Andromeda was shooting by.

SNP is probably my favorite nearby place for the Perseids. It's close, cooler, no am fog, and has fewer bugs.

David

Aug 15, 2016 at 11:01 AM

dsjtecserv
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Perseids from Old Rag

Thank you, Dale, sachman, bill and Dave. I didn't have much choice in the direction if I wanted to capture the radiant (what I had in mind). The valley at the base of the hills isn't bad but the glow from the metro area beyond was more than I would have liked. I actually wanted to have some of the Old Rag boulders in the foreground and light paint them, but a group of kids beat me to the best location.

Dave

Aug 16, 2016 at 07:31 AM

Gary Clennan
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Perseids from Old Rag

Very nice Dave! You managed to capture quite a few meteors. Did you find this year to be better than others (as advertised)?

Aug 16, 2016 at 09:15 AM

CDalessandro
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Perseids from Old Rag

Gorgeous work! Well worth the time and effort...I can see these printed large and hanging proudly.
Beautiful!

Aug 17, 2016 at 05:03 AM

dsjtecserv
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Perseids from Old Rag

Thanks Gary and Carolyn. I'm not a regular meteor shooter so I can't compare in that sense, I but I recall past years of watching for Perseids as a lot of waiting for little reward, while this year they were frequent enough to justify keeping my eyes open!

The 14 mm provided a view of a big slice of the sky, but there were no doubt many more elsewhere in the sky, so the predictions of 100 to 200 per hour may have been plausible, especially in dark sky locations where the little ones would be visible. I can see faint trails in some of my other pictures that are probably meteors, but they wouldn't show up so I didn't include them in this composite.

Dave

Aug 17, 2016 at 07:32 AM

phil hawkins
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Perseids from Old Rag

We were at Tioga Pass in the Inyo National Forest and the moon was so bright it was difficult to shoot, and impossible to see the Milky Way. So it was a bust. But we did see the International Space Station fly over just after 9pm on Thursday the 11th of August. What a sight!!

Aug 17, 2016 at 10:59 AM

dsjtecserv
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Perseids from Old Rag

Wow, Tioga Pass would have (in theory) been a great place to take in the shower. The moon was up until about 12:30 a.m. for me, and it had a similar effect on the visibility of the Milky Way and the meteors, though I saw a few. I spent most of that time shooting moonlight views of the boulders and rock formations on the Old Rag summit.

Dave

Aug 17, 2016 at 11:06 AM


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