Last night was the Perseids Meteor Shower. As the sun went down it was raining really hard. So I went to bed and hoped I would wake up and the sky would be clear. I woke up at 2:52 am, the clouds were gone. I grabbed my camera, tripod, and cable release and ventured out. My first spot is nice and out-of-the-way, great for sky shots, not a lot of traffic and open. So I parked and tried. Luckily for me, I had no reading glasses or flashlight, so I am guessing at my camera settings, using my phone to light the dial and find the bulb setting. Fumbling around with the manual focus button, or at least what I thought was manual focus. After getting it together I watched the sky, saw a few meteors, my photo attempts were pretty weak. The city light was discouraging, fog was rolling in, and clouds were heading toward me again. I heard a dog barking, and imagined if he was heading my way that I would hear him running and be able to escape into my car ala Fletch. Then a train came so I hurried and shot that. Then I decided to get back and my car and see if I could find a better spot. I drove around, stopping here and there, for almost 2 hours. I should have just stayed where I was. Stupid lights are everywhere. I really need to find a spot ahead of time, get all my crap together (like reading glasses, a chair, and perhaps coffee and a blanket). Sometimes my “wing it” mentality does not help my cause. But I did see 8 deer, 1 possum, 3 cats (all animals were alive and well and having fun doing their thing), lots of fog, the beautiful moon and sky, and 15 meteors. My camera saw no meteors. The night air was beautiful, cool, aromatic, and all around really great. It was hard to see, but I had a good time.
I used a number of filters and adjustments on the train photo above, as it was a little blurry and gave me a headache. Below is the night sky with the moon taken at my first location. I am going to have to look into the right way to take nighttime sky shots. And I also need to buy 20 more pairs of reading glasses and stash them everywhere!
ArtBea 