It says us in Asia are getting the hook up, but my peak time will be around 0540 in the morning, which is less than an hour before sunrise. Should i even bother?
I have always missed the Leonids as well.
* turn high iso noise reduction off, and shoot at a low iso
* get a shutter release cable with a lock
* use a tripod and mirror lock up...you'll be shooting somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-5 minute exposures (stick to midrange for aperture)
* long exposures burn batteries fast. Last time I did this, I got 5 x 5 minute exposures on about 3/4 of a battery and drained it.
* 5 minute exposures cause star trails...see if you can pinpoint the north star (or whatever point in the sky is the rotational axis for your hemisphere and zero in on that. That way, the rest of sky rotates around that center point, or move that rotational point off to the left or right third.
If you're feeling adventurous, find a tree to expose in the foreground and paint it with test bursts from your flash.
Those were some of my earlier mistakes and I still have a lot to learn so take that advice it with a grain of salt. The rest is up to the fates and what they decide to show you.
Oh and to the question of whether or not it's worth it...only you can answer that...You get this opportunity maybe 2 or 3 times a year...I for one will make use of it if the skies play along that morning.
Did some digging to get some details on the when/where and how.
For EST
The radiant point (star trail origination) for this shower will be low in the horizon east/northeast...See if you can pick out Leo and Leo Minor...
Everything I've looked up says that peak viewing time is between 1am and 5am, with the majority of the activity occuring between 3am and 5am.
Only problem I'm seeing at this point are clouds coming in from the West... I'll just have to check the radar maps again around midnight to see whether or not I'm getting skunked.
If you folks out in Australia and Asia are up - would love to see what you guys get since the big show's happening in your part of the sky.
If you're heading out tonight - good luck and keep warm
1. Pointing north is very unlikely to help you in this case. As most the meteors will appear to be shooting out of the Leo Constellation.
2. A lot of times even though weather report says cloudy, those clouds form in the early morning, it may in fact be clear in the middle of the night.
3. Just because the peak might be 3-5am depending where you are, the leonoids have been on going for the past week and will continue. Go out during a time that is comfortable for you and enjoy the night sky.
I took my cousin out for his first real experience, Saturn is a very bright and easy to find object right now, Mars is kinda available depending on time and location. Uranus is out but a little harder to find. Theres also M42, and M45 all of which are pretty easy objects to find.
I've been researching some of the shots on Flickr to get a sense for what kinds of exposures I can get away with...What I've decided to try is the following:
* F2.8
* ISO 1600 (on a D700)
* whatever shutter speed that gives me, but will try to stick around 5-30 seconds
* I'll be shooting near light pollution so I'm going to use an GND Filter on the bottom part of the frame to balance out the exposure
* Going to use 2 batteries, one in the body one in the grip (damn nikon $90 for an ac adapter wth?)
* shutting long exposure NR off
* setting up my intervalometer to shoot over 4 hours
I figure I'll need fairly light sensitive settings to capture those meteor trails because they're so faint, but not so much that I turn the scene into daylight...Worst comes to worst, I get a 10second time lapse video of the sun coming up
I'm just really frustrated because this is the middle of my work week, and here on Okinawa we are somewhat limited as to where we need to go to avoid light pollution- that, coupled with the peak hours being just before sunrise, it pretty much rules out me getting to take advantage of this opportunity.
I really wanted to try to shoot this too, but living DT Toronto and not having a car to get out of the city kinda puts a damper on that. Good luck to you guys, I hope to see some fine pics!
This may be a fool's errand but I live IN NYC and I'm going to try from my balcony anyway. I realize the shots may be faint, but those aren't the fireballs I'm chasing...the ones that are big enough to go from one side of the sky to the other are going to show up in the photo, light pollution or not.
Just ran some tests and I'm getting stars even here in the middle of the city.
Who knows may catch something, may catch nothing - camera's going to be doing all the work anyway. As the saying goes "that's why they call it fishing and not catching."
