Leonid Meteor FAIL

Stars swirl around the North Celestial Pole. (D700, 14mm/3.5 15 minutes)


Seems like every time i try and do something space or astronomy related, it ends up in a giant cluster****.

There was the time i photographed a space shuttle at night with a remote and i got pretty pictures of smoke. That one was my fault.

This time, the meteors just weren't there. The Leonids, named for the constellation Leo, just didn't show in any photos. Granted it was supposed to be an off year as they were supposed to only be about 20/hr here on the east coast.

After staying up all night, the fog rolled in around 3 AM and thats all she wrote.

I ran two cameras: One pointed at polaris to get the swirl, with the intention of getting a meteor streaking across the sky (D700, 15 min, f/4, ISO 100, 16mm fisheye) and the other going 30 sec aimed at the eastern sky (D2x, 30 sec 14mm/3.5 ISO 1600) and i only have one partial MAYBE. I did find 3 airplanes.




I'm not sure what that line is. It might be a meteor but really faint. It didn't seem like an airplane as it doesn't continue all the way through the frame and it doesnt have the pulsing strobe light like you usually see from an airplane.