2005 Perseid Meteor Shower
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Early in the morning on Friday August 12, I drove to the top of the Santa Ynez Mountains to observe the Perseid Meteor Shower. I observed for 100 minutes. In that time, I counted 51 Perseid meteors and two erratic meteors (not associated with the Perseid Shower). I shot 94 thirty-second time exposures with a Nikon D70 set to an effective film speed of 1600 ASA. I used an 18mm f3.5 lens. On those 94 exposures I found four meteor streaks. This illustrates that the human eye is much better at detecting meteors than cameras are.
The evening was warm and the sky was clear. Occasionally, cars with other Perseid observers rolled by on their way to find a place to watch the show.
Each set of three pictures below shows one meteor. The first picture in each set shows the constellations. The second picture shows the same area of sky. The third is a 4x blow up of the meteor.
2:01 A.M. Meteor streak just above Camelopardalis at the left side of the picture.
2:06 A.M. Meteor streak just below the star Polaris in Ursa Minor
2:32 A.M. Meteor streak at top of frame between Lacerta and Andromeda.
3:11 A.M. Meteor streak just to the left of Capella in Auriga.
Composite image of three meteors in Ursa Minor, Camelopardalis, and Andromeda. The meteor streaks all point back to the radiant in Perseus..
More Meteor Shower Displays
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