Geminid meteor shower

[mtbdudex]

Posted un-PP versions of these in the talk section, http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?p=11448771#post11448771

Here are 4 so far from tonight's Geminid meteor shower.

1:15am - 2am
My 1st time using Noels tools + CS5 to remove light pollution, learning on the fly.

These are all 25 sec exposures @ 15mm, ISO1600, T1i, no cropping.
In time sequence:

#1 1:19am


#2 1:34 am (small one located at rule 1/3's top/LH)


#3 1:37 am


#4 1:59 am



I liked #1 the best, so here is a crop of it
#1-cropped:

[Sullij]

Sweet! Well Done. I wanted to capture some of these but missed out. Thanks for sharing.

[fredroj]

Nice!!.....we are in Colorado, saw a nice one about 3 sec across the sky. we could see the trail....my daughter was stoked...then this morning i counted about 20 in 15min.

[Celestron]

Congrats ! All nice and i like the crop ! Send it to www.spaceweather.com and maybe it will get posted .

[mtbdudex]

Originally Posted by Celestron

Congrats ! All nice and i like the crop ! Send it to www.spaceweather.com and maybe it will get posted .

Thx Ron, I'll submit tonight when I get home.

[edit] submited just now, hopefully they'll get posted.

[marubozo]

Hey, Mike. What was your PP process for these? They look great and a vast improvement upon the originals. I'm still struggling with processing mine a bit. Seems like in order to get the sky as dark as I want I end up clipping too many of the faint stars.

We used virtually identical equipment and exposure settings and are located probably less than 200 miles apart, so I'm sure I should be able to utilize your processing technique to get the same end result. Thanks!

[soliwit]

Yes I would love to know too, I did my very very first try at sky photography last night, I was lucky to have two ok shots, but your PP looks way better.
Mine are in my flickr
I love the 002 one, it actually has 2 shooters *yay*

[mtbdudex]

Originally Posted by marubozo

Hey, Mike. What was your PP process for these? They look great and a vast improvement upon the originals. I'm still struggling with processing mine a bit. Seems like in order to get the sky as dark as I want I end up clipping too many of the faint stars.

We used virtually identical equipment and exposure settings and are located probably less than 200 miles apart, so I'm sure I should be able to utilize your processing technique to get the same end result. Thanks!

Originally Posted by soliwit

Yes I would love to know too, I did my very very first try at sky photography last night, I was lucky to have two ok shots, but your PP looks way better.
Mine are in my flickr
I love the 002 one, it actually has 2 shooters *yay*

I bought this Astronomy Tools Photoshop action set online for $21.95 maybe 2 months ago, but never used it till this morning.
http://www.prodigitalsoftware.com/As...l_Version.html.

It works under Photoshop, I have CS5 Mac version, ran the "remove light pollution" action:


Then in Apple Aperture I played with levels to brighten up the stars.
Noels tools can do that but it's easy with the levels.
Since the light pollution was removed, I just grabbed the RH end and moved it towards left as shown.

[marubozo]

Originally Posted by mtbdudex

I bought this Astronomy Tools Photoshop action set online for $21.95 maybe 2 months ago, but never used it till this morning.
http://www.prodigitalsoftware.com/As...l_Version.html.

Hey, thanks! I will have to check that out. I'm pretty lazy when it comes to PP, so anything that can streamline things for a reasonable price is probably worth it.

[mtbdudex]

Originally Posted by marubozo

Hey, thanks! I will have to check that out. I'm pretty lazy when it comes to PP, so anything that can streamline things for a reasonable price is probably worth it.

There are all sorts of manual methods and YouTube videos out there, I've had decent luck with curves and levels, but this light pollution seemed high and I was very impressed at how easy Noels tools did it, +1 for $$ well spent.

[soliwit]

wow thanks for the extensive explanation!!!!

[marubozo]

Originally Posted by mtbdudex

There are all sorts of manual methods and YouTube videos out there, I've had decent luck with curves and levels, but this light pollution seemed high and I was very impressed at how easy Noels tools did it, +1 for $$ well spent.

I'm impatient and already bought the actions. Thanks for suggesting them, because it's amazing! It worked right out of the box like advertised. Would have taken me an hour of experimenting to accomplish the same thing myself. I can't wait to try some of them out on a lot of old unprocessed images just collecting dust on my hard drive to see what I can turn them into.

[mtbdudex]

Originally Posted by Celestron

Congrats ! All nice and i like the crop ! Send it to www.spaceweather.com and maybe it will get posted .

These shots on spaceweather are fantastic, http://spaceweather.com/meteors/gall...s98uthc36er8j5

I need foreground to tie the meteorite(s) into the earth, a "streak" is a "streak", sure its interesting and cool but relating that to earthbound object, tree/hills/barn/etc, gives meaning and people can relate more to "the moment".

My lesson learned for future shots.

[mtbdudex]

Here are some from the later that same early morning, 12/14 2:15am - 3:15am, just 2 after 60 minutes of more red eyes....
These are all crops.
#1


#2 I'm calling this the smallest Meteorite to be claimed! Top RH rule 1/3's located, per my crop.
I checked Heavens-above, not Sat's, Not ISS, and anyway it was middle of night not sunlight to bounce back to earth.


#2 next frame in sequence, shows same space w/o that small streak, too many pixels to be sensor noise.


I shoot looking North on 12/15, caught not one, but was able to make a winter star trails image to salvage my time....
125 images, 25 sec each, for 52 minutes of exposure. Used my T1i + Canon 15-85 @ 85mm, ISO1600.

[tkerr]

FYI.
"Meteorite" is a meteoroid that has made contact with the Earth Surface.
"Meteoroid" is the spec of dust, dirt, bebris, or rock in space.
"Meteor" is the streak of light cause by friction when meteoroid has come into contact with or trying to enter into Earths atmosphere.

I see the meteor the meteor in the first pictures, and what might be a meteor in the second picture. However, that one to me looks like it could possibly be a Cosmic Ray strike on the Camera CMOS sensor.

Awesome job on the star trails pic.