Meteors (or the lack of them)
On Friday night / Saturday morning it was expected that here in Canada we were going to be in prime position to see a spectacular meteor shower – the Camelopardalis shower. Now, a couple of weeks ago I was reading an article in a magazine about what settings to use for star photography, so I thought that never having taken star shots before, this would be the perfect opportunity to start. A few of us, including my niece Paula, got together at unearthly o’clock on Saturday morning and headed out for a great dark-sky spot near Caledon, Ontario.
The weather had been changeable on Friday and there were some residual clouds on the drive up, but the skies cleared just like the forecasters predicted and we had a great view of the sky filled with stars. More and more cars arrived at the site, waiting for the meteor shower to begin. And waited. And waited. It was a bust. Ok, we saw a few meteors, including a couple of spectacular ones, but overall it was a bit of a dud.
However, I did get my night shots, I did get to practice the technique and I did get to be out with my camera. It was still a pretty good night. This time I concentrated on single, relatively short images. Next time I’m thinking about the long exposure star-wheel shots and the Perseids.
The settings on the D7100 for the shots below varied slightly, but mainly were:
F4, ISO around 1600-2000, exposure 25-30 seconds. Manual focus at Infinity. On the bluer shots I dropped the White Balance down to around 2600K in post.
Still, any photography opportunity is a good opportunity. Next time.
Chris McPhee - Photographer 