Perseid Meteor Shower. August, 2015

[Phil_F_NM]

So with our move to New Mexico and access to about seven orders of magnitude more light gathering here than we had in Philly and NYC, Bethanne and I have been out the last few nights observing the fantastic Perseid Meteor Shower under the extraordinarily clear and bright high desert skies.

Streaking across the Milky Way.

Seen with the Andromeda Galaxy.

With the Pleiades star cluster.

These were all shot on a Nikon D300s with Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 AiS, Tokina RMC 17mm f/.5 and Nikkor 28mm f/2.8 AiS lenses, respectfully.
I don't have an equatorial mount yet but I'm going to build one over the next few days. Then I can stop my lenses down a bit for added sharpness, low ISOs and no star drag.

Hope you all had a chance to see this year's show. With a new moon right at the peak of the shower, it was really a rather uncommonly dark sky.

Phil Forrest

 

[Bill Clark]

Beautiful!

Thanks for putting images you made here on rangefinderforum

I realize how insignificant I Am when I see photos like these!

 

[bobby_novatron]

Wow. I actually found myself saying 'holy moly' while looking at your photos! Great work!

I was really looking forward to viewing the shower myself but the evening turned out to be cloudy in my part of Canada.

Thanks again for posting those pics!

 

[rfaspen]

I stood outside for over an hour last night, only saw 2 short, disappointing "stars". Clear skies except for smoke in the air here in the burning west. I used to live in NM. Miss those skies. Used to attend the big star party at Alamogordo each year. Quite an event.

 

[charjohncarter]

Stayed up last night to watch. It was great in CA.

 

[Mackinaw]

From Northern Michigan.

Jim B.

 

[kermaier]

I was rarin' to go, but it was overcast in NJ last night -- despite weather.com's assertions to the contrary! Grrrrrr

 

[bayernfan]

Drove pretty far out of the city limits, camped out for 2 hours. Saw about 10, and they were very faint and short. I think I had my expectations way too high. And I learned I'm not an astro-photographer. 😛