2 minutes exposure, Canon DSLR 55mm f/3.5 lens.
August 8, 2010.
The Persid meteor shower is probably the most famous meteor shower in the northern hemisphere. Generally a rich shower, with ZHR's around 100, the shower peaks in mid-August when many people are on holiday and are often noticed by non-astronomers. Unfortunately for observers "Down Under", the radient only just skims the northern horizon, making the shower very elusive, and only a few meteors normally are observed. With this in mind, I was looking forward to having a good view of the Persids from the northern hemisphere once I moved there in 2001. In the end I had to wait until 2010 before I could observe the shower.
In 2010 I observed the Persids over 5 nights. The shower was interesting with plenty of meteors observed, including many bright ones. However, after all of the reports I had read, I was somewhat disappointed. I had expected much more. Personally I would rate both the Geminids and the eta aquarids as better showers. Still it was nice to finally get to observe the shower! I coupled an Olympus 50mm f/2 lens to an SBIG ST-7 CCD and used that to image meteors. Adding a red filter to dim the light pollution and the moonlight, proved to be a worthwhile combination. Despite the small field of view, I managed to capture 2 leonids.
In addition to searching through the images for meteors, I also assembled the images into animations. These are shown below.
5 August, 2010 |
9 August, 2010 |
9 August, 2010 |
9 August, 2010 |
11 August, 2010 |
13 August, 2010 |