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[Centaur]

The annual Perseid meteor shower is expected to peak tonight, August 11-12. It’s usually the best one of the year for northern hemisphere sky watchers, with an average of about one meteor visible per minute by a keen eyed observer.

The worldwide maximum is expected around 13 hr UT (8 hr CDT) on August 12, however the ideal period for any location is between local midnight (midway between sunset and sunrise) and the beginning of morning twilight. Tonight during the wee hours of the morning a waning crescent Moon will rise, but it should not create much interference with meteor observation.

The meteor stream is a remnant of the comet Swift-Tuttle. Its radiant is in the constellation Perseus which will be in the northeastern sky. However the radiant is merely the point toward which meteor tails will be pointing. The meteors themselves can appear anywhere in the sky.

For my calendar of major meteor showers (including Moon info) through 2018, click: www.CurtRenz.com/asteroids

Observation reports would be welcome additions to this thread.

[dayzedankonfused]

I will be out in Bonfield IL tonight. Will be testing out the new camera and hopefully get some pretty awesome pictures. Will post on here if they turn out. Have fun tonight everyone! #kindaexcited

[patrickm]

Two bright naked eye sparklers north to south in eastern sky and one in binocs north to south in Deneb. Five total. Now I am cold. Good night.

[dayzedankonfused]

Was out past Kankakee. Saw about 97 in a 2 hour period. Got some really cool shots with the camera and I know for sure I got one on film. Will go through the pics tomorrow i'm tired from the hour and a half long drive...

[Paulie pchris00]

Aug 11, 2012 11:35:22 GMT -6 Centaur said:

Tonight during the wee hours of the morning a waning crescent Moon will rise, but it should not create much interference with meteor observation.

I disagree.

Oh, the Moon wasn't eactly bright, but with Jupiter before it, and Venus after it, I found it hard not to stare at that part of the sky. Not to mention the Pleiades, Aldebaran, and Betelgeuse also in the mix near the solar system trio. It was a beautiful sight.

Didn't count meteors, but saw quite a few good ones. Dealt with scattered cloud cover around midnight at Conway, but cleared nicely until just before sunrise. I intended to do a good bit of observing besides the meteors, but this turned out to be much more of a socal event for me than any kind of observing. Fun night to be out under the "fixed" stars, and a nice sprinkling of "shooting" stars.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Catching some of the Perseids on a roof top from the Heart of Chicago

11 August 2012

We have a brief camping trip Sunday night into Monday morning, hoping to catch a nice Persied show, but the weather forecast did not look good for that period of time in the Kankakee area. So, I suggested that Maria and I jaunt up to her roof and at least enjoy it under clear skies now.

Starting about 11:00 pm, we lay a blanket down and face NorthEast, with a semi-deep sky and wisps of clouds here and there. Polaris was easily visible, a good indicator of transparency. Early reports stated that this would be a good showing of the Pereids, but we only caught one - a bright golden colored one at 11:50 pm - shooting right through Cassiopeia and leaving a nice dust trail behind.

We stayed a bit longer, but I needed to get to sleep, it was getting cold and I have seen better in years past under city skies. Granted, it was still early in the night by observational meteor shower standards, but at least we saw a Perseid...

[Centaur]

Thanks for your fine reports, Dayz, Patrick, Paulie & Joe. August is a marvelous month for observing the sky. We still have the warmth of summer, but the Sun sets earlier and rises later than in June & July. Each year August brings us the fine Perseid display and a breathtaking Milky Way for those outside the city. Meanwhile, don't forget the Venus occultation on Monday afternoon: www.CurtRenz.com/moon

[erikruud]

I was out with family camping at Shabbona Lake State Park more less straight south of Dekalb, IL. We were able to see dozens per hour. I was playing around with my brother-in-law's Nikon D5100. He didn't know how to set it up for night shots and he forgot a tripod. I got it set up and took 190 shots with different setting and two different lenses. The best ones were with a fish eye lens. I was setting the camera down on it's back on a small table in place of the tripod.

I caught several meteors, but this was the best one, both visually and photographically. It pulsed and flared and left an after glow the persisted for about a minute.

Click on the image to see it in full resolution.


I have more pictures, but I'll post them later.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Erik,


That...is righteous!

[Centaur]

Wow, Erik! You even imaged the Milky Way and the dark lane running through it.

[dayzedankonfused]

Here is a few pictures from the night...only caught one on camera out of 250 pictures.







Enjoy!

[erikruud]

I caught several.
The fish eye lens really helped.

[-=CROMAN=-]

Erik I posted your pics with a link back to here on the iskywatch facebook page. These are fantastic shots!

[patrickm]

Erik, I posted on the Twitter. Great shot!

How long were your exposures? In the city, I would have needed 45 minute exposures to catch just one...

[erikruud]

Patrick, I was trying different settings. It wasn't my camera and I had never even used it before.
My brother-in-law new that it was good for these types of shots, but had no clue how to get the right settings.

Exposure times were between 10 and 30 seconds. ISO was set at 5000 and 6500 and then noticed that if you scrolled down past 6500 there were some more settings labeled Hi.1 Hi.2 etc. The icons indicated that they were good for night sky shots.

I don't know which shots had which settings. I tried to check the EXIF data last night, but the data wasn't embedded in the pictures. I don't know if it got lost when I copied them off of the memory card or maybe the option was turned off on the camera. I will have to check with my brother-in-law to see if I can find out.

[erikruud]

Aug 12, 2012 15:54:58 GMT -6 Centaur said:

Wow, Erik! You even imaged the Milky Way and the dark lane running through it.

That part was easy. The sky out there was just dark enough that you could see the Milky Way with your naked eye. It was faint but it was there. dazedanknfused first picture is pretty close to what the sky looked like for us.

The light in the trees on the left side was a street light over the pit toilet building a couple campsites away. It was behind us, down a hill and in the trees, so it didn't affect our vision much.

[erikruud]

I posted a full report under Astro Camping.

[erikruud]

It turns out I just needed a newer EXIF reader.

Here are the stats for the photo.
ISO: Hi 1.0 (equivalent to 12800)
Exposure: 15 seconds
Aperture F4.5
AF Aperture F1.6

[erikruud]

Here are the details for the lens.

Rokinon 8mm F/3.5 Fisheye Lens
Lens creates images with an expanded perspective and allows user to capture a very unique perspective;
Lens Conforms to APS-C (1:1.5x) size digital imaging format;
Lens Actualizes 8mm focal length and a diagonal angle of view of 180 degrees for APS-C size;
Lens Corrects aberrations using a complex aspherical lens;
Manual Focus;
Aperture range of F/3.5 ~ 22;
Minimum focusing distance of 12 inches (0.3m)

[erikruud]

Aug 12, 2012 20:21:37 GMT -6 -=CROMAN=- said:

Erik I posted your pics with a link back to here on the iskywatch facebook page. These are fantastic shots!

Rich, Only the first one is mine, the other's were posted by dazedankonfused.

[dayzedankonfused]

Erik you picture looks fantastic. The sky was beautiful out where I was past Kankakee. You could totally see the milky way when you looked up. I was using 25 second exposure with just a standard 50 mm lens.. The fish eye lens looks awesome! I only took pictures for about an hour then then lens and my scope started dewing up so I packed it up and just sat in the chair continuing on my meteor counting. It was a beautiful sight and night! I have been getting this interest in astrophotography and been reading online on some sites..man can it get expensive! I gotta get a second job lol

[-=CROMAN=-]

Erik were the pictures taken in RAW format? Im just curious why the EXIF info was not available.

[erikruud]

They were in JPG. The program I originally tried to use to get the EXIF data was out of date and doesn't work with more recent versions of EXIF. I tried a different program and it worked.

Look 5 posts back.