How to photograph the Perseid Meteor Shower?
August usually means Summer, at least for the northern Hemisphere and the Perseids. The perseids are an amazing meteor shower usually occurring during mid August with up to 150 meteors an hour. In 2018 the peak is happening tonight (12th of August) and tomorrow night! In this blog I will outline how to capture this amazing event with your DSLR or even with your PHONE!
Image courtesy: www.usatoday.com
HOW TO PHOTOGRAPH THE PERSEID METEOR SHOWER?
WHAT YOU WILL NEED FOR PHOTOGRAPHING THE PERSEIDS:
- A DSRL or mirrorless camera or PHONE, where you have the ability to set manual settings
- A tripod that keeps your camera steady during longer exposures.
- A lens (PHONE) that has a high aperture of at least f/4, better would be f/2 or even as low as f/1.4
- Clear Skies, check the weather forecast. Small clouds could ruin the shot!
- A dark place in your region without too much light-pollution. Lightning Pollution Maps is a great service to find a dark place close to you!
- A wide-angle lens (phones usually have ultra wide angle lenses attached). Meteors often travel along the whole sky!
Image Courtesy: www.space.com
How to set the camera?
1. You will need to select the manual modus on your Camera of choice. If your phone doesn't allow this, there are great 3rd party apps. The biggest names are Camera+, ProCam 5, ProCamera (for IPHONE) and Manual Camera (for ANDROID).
2. Deselect autofocus and set the focus to "infinity" or focus on a star through live view!
3. For the shutter speed you should set something between 15-30 seconds. For the Aperture you should select the lowest you can possibly set, as you want to collect as much light as possible during the exposure. For the ISO you start at something like 640 and work your way up depending on the location you are shooting at. NOTE: Especially on Smartphones the shot will get noisy!
SO GO AND HAVE FUN AND ENJOY THIS AWESOME EVENT!
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