A Geminid reward

[maw lod qan]

Looking forward to the Friday night Saturday morning peak, I was disappointed to say the least with our 100% cloud cover.

Hoping to catch at least a couple stragglers I set up my camera last night and crossed my fingers.

While I stood there, cursing the LP from the one light my neighbor didnt sheild, I saw three sporadic meteors, two in my direct field of view and one in my peripheral vision. 

Better than nothing I td myself, giving thanks to the Gods of the night sky.

This morning I had to work, so I brought my camera back in at 3am.

During my 30 min drive to work, I look West all the way. There in the sky a meteor appeared! It was bold and quite brilliant, greenish blue, leaving no trail in its wake as it descended towards the Gulf of Mexico.

I'm certain from its direction, it was a late Geminid.

Not 5 minutes later, in the left of my vision another one  very similar to the first appeared, speeding from near the zenith downward again toward the cold water waiting for it.

If I couldn't lay back and look up for hours Friday night, this little treat was a just reward.

[NGC 1502]

Well done 👍.........sadly 100% cloud at my location........

Ed.

[NGC 1502]

8 hours ago, maw lod qan said:

During my 30 min drive to work, I look West all the way.

 

Warning...........a traffic violation ticket is on its way............😁😁😁...........sorry, couldn’t resist..........😁

[Beulah]

The weather has majorly sucked this astronomy season. The amount of rain, snow and hail we have had since October is hard to be believed.  So no Geminids observed here and out of all the meteor showers we have had this year, managed to catch one, lonely Monocerotid (image below)... Oh well, let's hope for clear weather during the Ursid peak of December 23rd... 

 

 

[Marvin Jenkins]

10 hours ago, maw lod qan said:

Looking forward to the Friday night Saturday morning peak, I was disappointed to say the least with our 100% cloud cover.

Hoping to catch at least a couple stragglers I set up my camera last night and crossed my fingers.

While I stood there, cursing the LP from the one light my neighbor didnt sheild, I saw three sporadic meteors, two in my direct field of view and one in my peripheral vision. 

Better than nothing I td myself, giving thanks to the Gods of the night sky.

This morning I had to work, so I brought my camera back in at 3am.

During my 30 min drive to work, I look West all the way. There in the sky a meteor appeared! It was bold and quite brilliant, greenish blue, leaving no trail in its wake as it descended towards the Gulf of Mexico.

I'm certain from its direction, it was a late Geminid.

Not 5 minutes later, in the left of my vision another one  very similar to the first appeared, speeding from near the zenith downward again toward the cold water waiting for it.

If I couldn't lay back and look up for hours Friday night, this little treat was a just reward.

I have taken notice of your determination over the past months, possibly year. I am in awe of your dedication. Sometimes,  look up for meteors and wonder if I am the only one, right there, right at that time. Then I find myself saying out loud, “maw lod   qan”. If it wasn’t for the time difference we could be looking at the same thing.

The skies cleared (shock) last night at 1am. Saw an amazing meteor, burning orange from east to west and a further four small streaks in the minutes that followed. I am going to say that I am a witness to the Geminids.

Keep it up everyone. Absolute meteor nut right here.

Beulah. Great photo, sums up all the effort well done.

Marv

[Marvin Jenkins]

2 hours ago, Beulah said:

The weather has majorly sucked this astronomy season. The amount of rain, snow and hail we have had since October is hard to be believed.  So no Geminids observed here and out of all the meteor showers we have had this year, managed to catch one, lonely Monocerotid (image below)... Oh well, let's hope for clear weather during the Ursid peak of December 23rd... 

 

 

Sorry to say I will be in central London for the Ursids, what a shame. Will be visiting the meteorite room at the natural history museum.

Got to say, not just a great picture because of the streak, but a great wide field milky way. Any info on exposure duration ISO etc ?

Marv

[Beulah]

19 minutes ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

Sorry to say I will be in central London for the Ursids, what a shame. Will be visiting the meteorite room at the natural history museum.

Got to say, not just a great picture because of the streak, but a great wide field milky way. Any info on exposure duration ISO etc ?

Marv

Thanks for the kind comments, Marvin. The Ursids are normally not much to write home about but it's got the benefits of no Moon getting in the way for a while during the peak, unlike all the other meteor showers this year!

First of all, the photo is a little 'blurred' due to image quality loss - the original TIFF is sharper!

The info is as follows:

Canon 6D (apparently great at picking up H-alpha in its unmodded state)

Samyang 14mm f/2.8 at f/2.8

12 x 25 seconds on static tripod, ISO 6400

Painfully stacked in Sequator (to eliminate Mr Musk's latest venture 😁) and slight tweaks in Adobe Photoshop 2020.

[Marvin Jenkins]

Thank you for the info, most kind. Funny how we all seem to have a love hate relationship with the moon.

I thought the picture was quite sharp, but I do know what you mean as I have posted a couple of pics and they appear way worse on here than my pc screen.

I recently looked at Samyang lenses on the web, but that is a discussion for a different part of this forum.

I am however going to try and find a manual focus, wide angle, prime lense from back in the day to fit my Nikon D3100 whilst in London. If successful I will post any results on here.

Cheers Beulah.

M

[Beulah]

3 minutes ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

Thank you for the info, most kind. Funny how we all seem to have a love hate relationship with the moon.

I thought the picture was quite sharp, but I do know what you mean as I have posted a couple of pics and they appear way worse on here than my pc screen.

I recently looked at Samyang lenses on the web, but that is a discussion for a different part of this forum.

I am however going to try and find a manual focus, wide angle, prime lense from back in the day to fit my Nikon D3100 whilst in London. If successful I will post any results on here.

Cheers Beulah.

M

Let us know what you get. 

[Marvin Jenkins]

1 minute ago, Beulah said:

Let us know what you get. 

Living in rural France means great wine and food, clean air and very little light pollution, heaven obviously? The downside is there are no shops and the nearest town is 30 minutes drive away, hence no light pollution. The trouble is finding equipment. Live in the middle of nowhere and have access to nothing.

Hopefully I will find a lense, point it to the sky, and post it on here. My problem right now is that the stock 18-55 set to manual focus has so little movement it is useless for nighttime work.

M

[maw lod qan]

15 hours ago, NGC 1502 said:

 

Warning...........a traffic violation ticket is on its way............😁😁😁...........sorry, couldn’t resist..........😁

Oh, they would use most of the ticket book on me. 3am, there is usually little if no traffic on the rural road I travel.

I enjoy driving and like the old rock song said, "I cant drive, 55!"