Leonid Meteor Shower: Timelapse HD Video

Leonid Meteor Shower : Timelapse HD Video, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

You should see two big ones top center, then a lot of little ones down near the horizon after that.

Assembled from 224 30 second photos taken last night from 1-3am in the Eastern Sierra, California, during the Leonid meteor shower in 2009.

All I can say now in 2014 is wow, my technique has progressed a lot since 2009!

Catch the Leonid Meteor Shower Nov 17/18!

Catch the Leonid Meteor Shower Nov 17/18!, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

The Leonid Meteor Shower, one of the best meteor showers of the year, is happening this week, peaking around November 17/18. The meteors appear to originate from the constellation Leo.  The radiant point that the meteors seem to originate from rises slightly north of due east shortly after after 11 pm.

Long, earth-grazing meteors could be visible coming out of the eastern horizon before the radiant point rises. You can download an app such as StarWalk to a smartphone or tablet to make identification of the constellation and radiant point easy. As night progresses the portion of the earth that you're standing on rotates around to the forward path of the planet hurtling through space, where it collides with more space debris.  The path of the earth is due east at midnight, so the sky and atmosphere above you acts like a big scoop collecting meteors and creating long fireball trails.  The eastern half of your sky can collide with slightly more debris at that point, and more and more of the sky above you is directly facing the direction the earth is travelling as dawn approaches.  That's why early morning hours are often advised for meteor shower watching.

For 2014 however the moon will rise around 3 am at mid northern latitudes, so the best viewing will be roughly midnight to 2:30 am. Adjust your shooting direction to accommodate the east to west movement of Leo as it seems to circle the North Star and rises towards nearly overhead and slightly northeast as dawn approaches.

Check the weather forecast and moon rise times in your area to fine tune your viewing experience. To find a prime viewing spot, travel east away from cities to put the light pollution at your back. Good luck!

Leonid Meteor Shower is Underway!

Leonid Meteor Shower is Underway, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan (in Yosemite).

The Leonid Meteor Shower tends to be one of the best meteor showers of the year. With the moon setting at 2:50am this morning, I made it out by around 3:30am this morning to check it out. It was doing really well, with rates as I watched appearing to be as high as a meteor per minute. Of course not all of these fell in the field of view of my cameras.

The meteor per hour rate should increase for the next night or two. The best viewing of the Leonids this year is during darker skies after moonset, which here on the West Coast will be 3:30-5:30am tomorrow morning (Nov 17) and 4:30-5:30am the following morning (Nov 18).

The first image here was taken on my Canon 40D: 30 seconds at f/2.0, ISO 1600 with a 24mm lens (38mm effective). The second image was taken on my Canon 5D mark II using a 16-35mm lens, using 30 second exposures at f/2.8, ISO 6400.

Now that I know that this year's shower is reasonably robust, I'll try to get up earlier tomorrow morning and drive to a location where I can set up some nice compositions.