Luminous Landscape Forum

The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: Jeremy Payne on August 13, 2009, 09:49:26 pm

Title: Earthgrazer
Post by: Jeremy Payne on August 13, 2009, 09:49:26 pm
So ... I was sitting watching a ballgame on Tuesday night when it dawned on me that the Perseid meteor shower was about to peak.  I was in the country, with a nice view of the sky and without a lot of lights around ... so I figured I would try and catch one of the early "earthgrazers" just after sunset as Perseus rose and the moon hadn't.

It was already 8:45pm, so I grabbed my camera and ran outside to set it up ... I quickly set the camera to take one 30 second exposure every 45 seconds ... and ran back inside to watch the rest of the game.

I came back out about an hour and a half later and got the camera.  When I looked, I realized pretty quickly my guess at the exposure was a few stops under-exposed at least and figured I had totally blown it ... I don't have much experience shooting stars, and so I wasn't surprised my last second experiment seemed to fail ...

... but ... after a second look tonight, and with a little aggressive processing ... looks like I got one ...

Next year, I'm gonna find a body of water and get a reflected shot as it could be cool.

So here it is ... my really under-exposed earthgrazer:

(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3427/3818672137_f240b8690a_o.jpg)
Title: Earthgrazer
Post by: Steph1 on August 13, 2009, 09:58:20 pm

Nice picture, but I think it's an aircraft.
Strobe light and nav lights give thaoe parallel tracks and periodic dots.
Title: Earthgrazer
Post by: Jeremy Payne on August 13, 2009, 10:00:10 pm
Quote from: Steph1
Nice picture, but I think it's an aircraft.
Strobe light and nav lights give thaoe parallel tracks and periodic dots.
Haha ... I have a couple others that have to be meteors ... I just thought that was a BIG one ...

Too funny.

Title: Earthgrazer
Post by: bradleygibson on August 14, 2009, 01:30:03 am


Great idea, though!
Title: Earthgrazer
Post by: wolfnowl on August 14, 2009, 02:01:00 am
Quote from: Steph1
Nice picture, but I think it's an aircraft.
Strobe light and nav lights give thaoe parallel tracks and periodic dots.

Yup... no question.  

Mike.
Title: Earthgrazer
Post by: JeffKohn on August 14, 2009, 01:26:53 pm
Well, maybe it's not a meteor but it's still a pretty neat shot. Star trails can be interesting, but I think I prefer images such as this that show the stars  as stars.