Perseid Meteor Shower

The Perseid Meteor Shower is seen annually in August. It is the result of the Earth's orbit running into the path of the dust from the comet Swift-Tuttle. Hundreds of shooting stars fall from the sky to create a great visual meteor shower. While people can see few shooting stars in a typical night. The Perseid Meteor shower offers one of the best and most frequent viewings for people. While you can see hundreds of shooting stars, photographing them it not as easy.

The Perseid Meteor shower lit up at night along Hwy 32 Thursday, August 12, 2010 in Chico, Calif. (Jason Halley/Chico Enterprise-Record)

The same location is seen the day after the Perseid Meteor shower lit up at night along Hwy 32 Thursday, August 12, 2010 in Chico, Calif.(Jason Halley/Chico Enterprise-Record)

I headed above the city lights and set out my camera. I was alone. After about 10 minutes, I lost interest. It was neat, but really quite boring by myself. This is one of the drawbacks about being a passionate photographer. You generally go out because you are excited to photograph something. It usually is in harsh conditions that other people don't want to join because they don't have the same passion to sit out in the dark and cold for 4 hours without any t.v. or reading light. Technology has improved, so I was able to play a scrabble-like game on my cell phone, which past the time quite quickly. Two hundred and fifteen images later... I had one image with a shooting star. I probably had more, I just couldn't seen them with the settings I was using.

Stars shine above Chico looking south of Upper Bidwell park at night along Hwy 32 Thursday, August 12, 2010 in Chico, Calif.(Jason Halley/Chico Enterprise-Record)

The same location looking south of Upper Bidwell park is seen the day after the Perseid Meteor shower lit up at night along Hwy 32 Thursday, August 12, 2010 in Chico, Calif.(Jason Halley/Chico Enterprise-Record)

You have to be very lucky. Getting your settings right helps, but even then you're not guaranteed a bright streak across the camera. I had set my camera to ISO 400 and the exposures to 30 second intervals while leaving the aperture wide open at f/2.8. I would have like to push the ISO sensitivity higher, but I was using an older camera (because my others are broken) for the time being. If I would have pushed it higher, the images would have been too noisy. It was a little dark, but all I needed was one.

I went back the next day to see the same spots that I had taken the pictures from. It was a neat afterthought to what I would consider a successful night.