perseid meteor shower tonight! august 12th!

[bonocomet]

Star Neck 3000

I'd probably buy one

 

[music.u2]

there are several meteor showers per year.
the perseids in august and the leonids in november are probably the most famous.
here's a link that i found with a calendar of meteor showers for 2007:
http://www.jas.org.jo/meto.html
the last column on the calendar in the link gives the estimated number of meteors per hour.

Thanks for the link and all the info! I might try and stay up for the Leonids showers in November even if I have school the next day. The sky is usually clearer in the autumn so hopefully I'll have better luck next time!

There's loads of pictures on the BBC's website of the shower. Here's a couple:

 

[waynetravis]

thanks for the comments guys!!!

waynetravis can you give me the exact model of your camera? I'll be glad to give you some tips just to know exactly what you have

It's a Fuji FinePix E900.
Only had it a year

 

[Mofo]

Great Pics Abel! for the north star pic how long was the exposure?
and the grainy or noise in the pics are probably because of the 400-800 speed film mine were also taken at 800 iso

 

[Mofo]

It's a Fuji FinePix E900.
Only had it a year

Its a good camera, with many options

I found this review with lots of info
http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/fuji/finepix_e900-review/index.shtml

I'll look at it more carefully in a little while! but the first thing I would recoommend you is get a tripod if you don't already have one, nothing to fancy but also nothing to cheap since tripods that are too light won't be very stable in a windy place, always use the timer or if it has the option buy a cable release mainly for landscape pics.

Do you have photoshop? if you do always take the pics in RAW format they are like the digital negatives of cameras and a lot of manipulation and corrections can be done in this format, they are a bit heavy so I would recommend a 2 GB card at least but trust me it's worth it...I'll get back with more things

 

[ABEL]

Great Pics Abel! for the north star pic how long was the exposure?
and the grainy or noise in the pics are probably because of the 400-800 speed film mine were also taken at 800 iso

ya know its been so long ago i really don't remember and i can't find the sheet of paper i had all that written down on.
i seem to remember it being about 2 hours.

what speed and kind of film do you suggest for less grainy photos?

 

[Mofo]

I'd suggest 400 max, it depends on what type of photos, obviously 100 has the best quality, but it also depends on the camera, have you consider going digital?

 

[ABEL]

I'd suggest 400 max, it depends on what type of photos, obviously 100 has the best quality, but it also depends on the camera, have you consider going digital?

actually i am shopping around for a new digital camera.
the digital camera i have right now is a sony cyber shot that's about 5 years old.
and as far as i can tell it can't take astronomy photos like that?

what sort of digital camera would you suggest that can take those long exposure photos and not break the bank? lol

 

[Mofo]

The Rebel XTi its around the 700-800 dollars, but it's really worth it, its the best in it's price range. I started with the XT which is an earlier model, but it's got everything manual, iso, white balance control, changing lenses, raw format, supposedly by the end of this month or september the 40D is coming out which is a below the 5D but above the 30D, (the Rebel XTi is below the 30D) so prices are bound to go down, you might wanna wait a little

 

[ABEL]

thanks mofo i'll look into it. is there a 2nd recommendation that's not quite as expensive?

also for anyone interested, i saw this short but nice video of the perseid meteor shower on myspacetv.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=15715388

 

[~BrightestStar~]

I haven't read all the thread, but I went out the other night at around 2:30 and a few of them were absolutely breathtaking.

I don't know if they were the fireball ones someone mentioned or not, but a few were so bright, and "slow"...and they had little tails/trails that lasted a few moments after the meteor/spot itself disappeared.

One in particular was absolutely amazing, so huge and bright, almost had a purple hue.
Never seen anything like it.
Saw quite a few of the small fast ones too. I'm glad I stayed up.

 

[ABEL]

glad you got to see it!

youtube has some awesome videos too, here's one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y42gX1ASlEU

i already am looking forward to the next meteor shower no matter how big or small

 

[Mofo]

thanks mofo i'll look into it. is there a 2nd recommendation that's not quite as expensive?

also for anyone interested, i saw this short but nice video of the perseid meteor shower on myspacetv.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=15715388

I've used a few times Nikon, and at the end of they day they are pretty much the same except in prices where Nikon is usually cheapear I think the Nikon counterpart to Canon's Rebel XTi is the Nikon D40 my guess it would be they are in the range of 500-700 dollars depending on the model, those could be a good option.