Meteor shower?

Hi all,

Just wondering if anyone has experience in this area. I'm going camping for the next few days, and there happens to have a meteor shower on the 12th. The nights will be clear, and it should be quite a view. I'm bringing my 20D and my 28-135mm lens. (See my list of equipments below) I'm also bringing a mini tripod. Any idea whether it's possible to take a shot at these meteor showers? What ISO, apperture and shutter speed should I go for?

You may find some help here:
http://web.canon.jp …g/astro/pages_e​/01_e.html

You want to shoot at 3200 ISO with your lens wide open. Your shutter speed will depend on the rate of the meteors. I suggest either bulb or 30 sec exposure, mirror lockup, and remote release.

This works best with the camera firmly mounted on a very stable tripod. At 30 seconds you will get some star tracks from the Earth's rotation. On a mini tripod, you will likely get lots of shakes from the camera.

So, try taking a couple of pictures but most importantly try and have fun.

I would expect a big/massive tripod to work a lot better.

---Bob Gross---

Yea, I agree a big tripod will be nice. But it's a portage trip. There will be lots of hiking over 4 days. So, I will have to travel light. Oh well..wish me luck. I'll post some pix when I come back if I have any successes.

Thanks everybody.

Carry a mesh shopping bag and when you set up, put a rock in it and hang it from the tripod.

I wouldn't worry too much about the tripod. Sure a big heavy tripod would be great, but a lighter inexpensive tripod will work just as well.

I would also suggest longer exposures than 30 seconds (bring a cable release); try for several minutes. Since you are photographing meteors and not deep sky objects, I wouldn't worry too much about the star trails. I've seen lots of great pictures of meteors where the exposures were fairly long, with long star trails and lots of meteors in them. The problem with shorter exposures is that since the camera sees a fairly small area of the sky and the exposure is short, your chances of catching meteors are smaller. If you are in a dark area, you will also get less light pollution from city lights, enabling nicer long exposures.

Because of earth's orbital motion around the sun, you will also have better luck taking your pictures after midnight, when you will be facing in the direction of earth's motion in space. During meteor "showers" the earth is travelling through a region is space with an increased density of (usually) comet debris.

hope this helps,

JS