Leonid Shower 11/17

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Leonid Shower 11/17

Shutterslam
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p.1 #1 · Leonid Shower 11/17

http://www.space.com/spacewatch/091101-leonid-meteor-shower-2009.html

I always hated reading about these events AFTER they happened, so I thought I'd toss this out to anyone that'll be in range to shoot these.

The peak of the shower is slated for ~2100 UST so that means our friends in Asia will get peak viewing (around 100 an hour).

For North America - we're looking at viewing opportunities on the 16th and 17th 3:30 to 5:30 EST

Nov 05, 2009 at 07:17 PM

E-Vener
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p.1 #2 · Leonid Shower 11/17

Thanks!

Nov 05, 2009 at 08:22 PM

joosay
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p.1 #3 · Leonid Shower 11/17

Thank you...I'm going to try to shoot this.. It's going to be interesting..I hope.

Nov 11, 2009 at 07:22 PM

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p.1 #4 · Leonid Shower 11/17

I'll be shooting this as well... thanks for the info on it! Anyone have good astrophotography tips for first-timers?

Nov 11, 2009 at 09:31 PM

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p.1 #5 · Leonid Shower 11/17

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.

Nov 11, 2009 at 11:53 PM

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p.1 #6 · Leonid Shower 11/17

* 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.

ss

Nov 12, 2009 at 05:18 AM

NightOwl Cat
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p.1 #7 · Leonid Shower 11/17

And the fates decree that we in Ohio will have cloudy overcast skies that night, if not fog, it never fails.

Nov 12, 2009 at 12:18 PM

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p.1 #8 · Leonid Shower 11/17

If your camera doesn't have mirror lock up not to worry -- any vibrations caused by mirror slap will be miniscule in a 5 minute exposure...

Nov 12, 2009 at 12:29 PM

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p.1 #9 · Leonid Shower 11/17

Thank you for the head's up.

Nov 12, 2009 at 01:17 PM

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p.1 #10 · Leonid Shower 11/17

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...

This is what you would see at 1am EST/6am UT
http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Yourhorizon?lat=40.7517&ns=North&lon=73.994&ew=West&fov=45.000&azimuth=90.000&date=1&utc=2009%2D11%2D17+06%3A00&jd=2455152%2E24824&azideg=0%B0+%28N%29&coords=on&moonp=on&deep=on&deepm=3%2E0&consto=on&constn=on&constb=on&limag=5%2E5&starn=on&starnm=3%2E0&starb=on&starbm=3%2E5&showmb=%2D1%2E5&showmd=6%2E0&terrain=on&terrough=0%2E7&scenery=on&imgsize=512&scheme=0&elements=

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

Nov 16, 2009 at 06:03 PM

NightOwl Cat
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p.1 #11 · Leonid Shower 11/17

Yeah, I checked the weather report for here, and as I feared.. cloudy. I'm going to be skunked for sure.

Nov 16, 2009 at 08:08 PM

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p.1 #12 · Leonid Shower 11/17

i think the most important tip for good astrophotography is to find a rural area to shoot. light pollution will easily ruin everything.

also, be aware of fog condensing on your lens; it ruined a 30 minute exposure of mine last night.

Nov 16, 2009 at 08:23 PM

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p.1 #13 · Leonid Shower 11/17

Just to discuss points above.

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.

Nov 16, 2009 at 08:37 PM

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p.1 #14 · Leonid Shower 11/17

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

How are you other guys setting up your cameras?

ss

Nov 16, 2009 at 08:44 PM

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p.1 #15 · Leonid Shower 11/17

i took this shot last night

D700: 30 secs, f/2.8, ISO3200, Long Exposure NR On

This image is copyrighted by the owner

Nov 16, 2009 at 08:55 PM

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p.1 #16 · Leonid Shower 11/17

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.

Nov 17, 2009 at 12:08 AM

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p.1 #17 · Leonid Shower 11/17

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!

Nov 17, 2009 at 12:22 AM

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p.1 #18 · Leonid Shower 11/17

Stars. Seattle. November. Is this the Comedy Channel?

Nov 17, 2009 at 12:43 AM

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p.1 #19 · Leonid Shower 11/17

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."

Nov 17, 2009 at 12:46 AM

Mister Bean
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p.1 #20 · Leonid Shower 11/17

So, anyone catch something good?

Nov 18, 2009 at 05:38 AM

hobbes
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p.1 #21 · Leonid Shower 11/17

Did anyone capture any good shots from last night and would care to post your results?

Nov 18, 2009 at 05:38 AM

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p.1 #22 · Leonid Shower 11/17

I was outside freezing my A** off with my lady friend until about 3, and we only saw a few brief ones (lots of light pollution in our area).

I'll post what I've got when I'm done tinkering with the shots in Photoshop. Nothing really stellar in the shots (I'm an astrophotography n00b), but the 2-3 dozen meteors that I saw (before the clouds rolled in) were pretty impressive! One or two of 'em were bright enough to cast shadows.

Nov 18, 2009 at 06:21 AM

NightOwl Cat
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p.1 #23 · Leonid Shower 11/17

We've got rain this week, so there's nothing to capture here. Figures..

Nov 18, 2009 at 12:47 PM

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p.1 #24 · Leonid Shower 11/17

I got skunked but a meetup group north of the city caught some action before the clouds rolled in around 2

Here's the time lapse I got from my balcony...had apply a perspective shift to 2300 frames to de-fish-ify the photo so the buildings look fatter than they should.

STARRY NIGHT

About 3 years back, I actually saw 3 fireballs streaking across the sky. No such luck this time, but it was still an interesting experiment with the new equipment.

For what it's worth...I set the intervalometer to capture 2550 frames...I got 2300 before the card filled up (16gb card at jpeg fine)...It didn't matter though because cloud cover at peak time killed the show.

other settings
jpeg fine
iso 1000
f5.6
5" exposures
wb set to 3200k
image review turned off
color controls set to neutral
intervalometer was set to ~830 intervals of 3 frames 17 seconds apart start at 2:00am and end 4 hours later

2 EN EL batteries were used in about 40 degree weather. The entire set drained one battery fully and left the 2nd at 20%.

Time lapse video compiled in Quicktime, exported as an mov, then encoded to flv for embedding in a flash player.

Nov 18, 2009 at 03:37 PM

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p.1 #25 · Leonid Shower 11/17

Cool!

I guess it's one way to get that shutter count up to a respectable number.

Nov 18, 2009 at 04:04 PM


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