The Perseid Meteor Shower in Central Oregon

Well, Sunday night I was out again watching the Perseid Meteor Shower. I was getting my viewing area ready for the vigil which I had planned to begin about 90 minutes later, but during the set up, I witnessed two beautiful and one okay meteor streak through the sky. So, I ran in the house, gathered the rest of my gear and brought it out.

I also brought out my camera...again. I set up near my lounge chair and after a few shots had been taken, decided to look at the composition. There were tree branches in it and near the top, a phone line, so I decided to relocate it. However, like the dumbass I can be sometimes, I picked up the entire rig and when I made a slight turn in the darkness, I whopped the camera against the side of an apple tree near my set up area.

Fearing the worst, I set the camera up and took a quick shot. The camera worked fine and when I looked at the image, I realized when the rig hit the tree, it moved my focus setting. A week or so ago, I remembered that the lens I was using didn't have a marked setting for Infinity focus, so I did a few shots, determined the correct way to set the manual focus of the lens to infinity and marked the position with two lines that I line up. So, I turned on my trusty red light flashlight, located to the lines and lined them up.

I then set the camera to shoot an image every 30 seconds, and I settled into my lounge chair and began a wonderful night of meteor viewing. I started at 11:30 pm (Pacific daylight time) and quit at 4:10am. During that time, I saw more than 100 meteors in the small section of sky I can see. Many were bright fireballs, but most were average everyday meteor. About 70 percent of them were Perseids, while the other 30 percent originated from radiants the north and south of the Perseids shower radiant. I know the southern radiant is from the Delta Aquids or something like that, but the northern radiant has me baffled.

While I watched the meteors blaze through the night sky, I saw several which may or may not have entered the camera's field of view. I was looking forward to checking the images later. Well, four and half hours later, I was cold (I live in a desert climate so it gets friggin cold at night, even in the summer) and tired, so I brought everything inside and collapsed on my bed.

After finishing my morning ritual, I stuck the CF card in my computer and ate breakfast while it transfered the 410 images I shot that night. When I looked at the first couple of images, everything was fine. They were the shots taken before the camera met the tree. But the images after that were blurred and distorted...every one of them.

And what was even more depressing was one image had what looked like a really nice meteor flashing through it.

Talk about wanting someone around to kick my ass (I can't do it myself). The lens took the beating and, like the 98 pound weakling, didn't survive. Now I have no wide angle lens...at least not until I can afford to replace the busted one.

I shall be a bit more careful with how I handle things around here. Of course, every time I screw something of mine up, I say the same thing, but what the hell at least I am trying.

Until I continue my interrupted blog of a couple of days ago, take care all you loyal readers...all of you...and watch out for those apple trees at night.

It's Shower Time

Early this morning, I gathered together a few things and proceded to do something I do every year at this time: Watch the Perseid Meteor Shower.

It was predicted to be one of the best displays in a long time. Well, so far it hasn't lived up to its expectation. Normal peak times for the shower are on the night of Aug. 11-12 and I was prepared. I did see some good shots, three nice, bright meteors which left a trail behind them as they burned in, but for the most part, anything else from the Perseids was small and dim.

There were two sporadic meteors (sporadics are meteors not associated with the shower being viewed) and one of them was a rather nice gold color. But two sporadics and 10 Perseids don't a meteor shower make.

Nor do they satisfy a watcher like me.

One reason I like to watch meteor showers is that I live in an area which affords me the opportunity to lie down in my backyard and get a nice view of stars and meteors, even with the lights of the city. It's not as good as it was 10 years ago, but still better than the night sky in Chicago 30 years ago. Plus, if I got out away from town to view, the night sky becomes absolutely stunning...almost glowing what with so many stars shining.

But I also like to photograph the showers I watch, in the hopes I can capture a nice shot of a beautiful meteor streaking through the sky.

Last night, I had my camera with me. It's a Canon Digital Rebel. A fairly old camera as digital single lens reflex cameras go, but it does a good job for me in my normal photographic pursuits. But I have only one lens worth using for meteors...a 28-80mm zoom lens. Because my camera has a smaller imaging chip at the point of focus of lens attached to it, it captures a smaller part of the image being projected by the lens. In the case of my camera, the field of view of the lens is equal to a 35mm film camera's field of view with a 45mm lens attached...not the 28mm which is the widest the lens can see.

It's a smaller slice of the sky I see with my camera, but I figure if I ever catch a meteor in the frame, it should look pretty good. But last night wasn't that night. I fired off just under 300 images (30 seconds long) and not one single one of the dozen meteors I saw fell within the view of the camera.

I watched the show for three hours and every time I watched a meteor blaze across a different portion of the sky than that my camera was pointed at, I would think, "Maybe I should move the camera." And then I would think of the grocery line...you know...the line you are NOT in always moves faster than your line until you move to that line. I figured if I moved my camera, nothing would show in that portion of the sky again and dozens of meteors would blaze through the area I just vacated.

I would have gotten one really nice meteor had I pointed the camera to shoot straight up. Two nice ones light up the night sky directly above me. But I didn't reposition the camera's view when the first one flew by and ended up with nothing. Oh, well...shit happens. .

I'll be out tonight again...camera pointed to a small slice of the night sky again...hoping to get that great meteor shot again.

Maybe I won't get skunked...again.

And if you tuned in at this time to catch up on the continuing story of my adventures behind The Wall, check back again. It got preempted.