Comments on: Shooting Stars: Leonid Meteor Shower Peaks November 17

By: 10 Most Popular PetaPixel Posts of 2009

10 Most Popular PetaPixel Posts of 2009 — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 23:56:34 +0000

[...] Shooting Stars: Leonid Meteor Shower Peaks November 17 [...]

By: Leonid Meteror Shower Peaks Tonight [Featured] | Bowl of Serial

Leonid Meteror Shower Peaks Tonight [Featured] | Bowl of Serial — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:15:21 +0000

[...] via peta pixel [...]

By: Eugene

Eugene — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:48:07 +0000

Michael, you make an excellent point regarding the difference between “normal” astrophotography vs. photographing “shooting stars.” My impression was to capture the entire sequence of the meteor shower (however long it lasts), but of course, if the exposure time is too long, there will be “interference” from star trails. I think the advantage of longer capture times is that you don't have to worry about perfect timing as well – unless you know in which one or two seconds the meteor shower will be most striking/visible/apparent :).

Maybe Petapixel readers can contribute or share their photos of the Leonid Meteor Shower and we'll see what different settings people used?

By: Eugene

Eugene — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:48:07 +0000

Maybe Petapixel readers can contribute or share their photos of the Leonid Meteor Shower and we'll see what different settings people used?

By: links for 2009-11-12 at Ik enzo

links for 2009-11-12 at Ik enzo — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:05:54 +0000

[...] Shooting Stars: Leonid Meteor Shower Peaks November 17 (tags: photography stars meteors leonids) [...]

By: Michael Zhang

Michael Zhang — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:12:07 +0000

I think what you're saying is true for normal astrophotography at much higher exposure times. However, in the case of capturing shooting stars, the time you have for the shooting star to expose your film/sensor is much short, so the film/sensor needs to be much more sensitive. If you're taking a 5 or 10 minute exposure of star trails, a shooting star that travels quickly and lasts only 1 or 2 seconds probably won't show up in your photograph (or it would be extremely faint and overwhelmed by the star trails).

Looking around at the shooting star photographs on Flickr, they seem to all be using ISO 1600.

By: Eugene

Eugene — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:38:52 +0000

I am not sure I agree with the suggestion to use high ISO (800 to 1600). At such long exposures (30 seconds or more), noise tends to get amplified. I would actually recommending shooting as low an ISO as possible with a wide angle lens.

If one is shooting on a dSLR, I actually recommending shooting in bulb mode. Here, the advantage of a lower ISO is also apparent: we would be able to take exposures of longer than thirty seconds to create some dramatic star trails! Of course, to shoot in bulb mode, it would help to have a release cable to trigger the shutter on and off!

By: فرصة جميلة قادمة لتصوير الشهب : Tasweery.com موقع تصويري للتصوير الفوتوغرافي

فرصة جميلة قادمة لتصوير الشهب : Tasweery.com موقع تصويري للتصوير الفوتوغرافي — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:16:30 +0000

[...] petapixel.com [...]