This year’s Perseid meteor shower

Earlier this week I was able to go out in the middle of the night and deprive myself of sleep in order to observe – and attempt to capture – the Perseid meteor shower. Despite the overwhelming light of the moon, I think it was a success.

Balancing a camera for long stellar exposures gets a bit more complicated when the moon is visible and bright; it brightens the sky considerably, drowning out many of the meteors and putting more light into the camera than one would like. While I was able to perform that balancing act ok, it did affect the kind of pictures that were possible.

I’d hoped to catch a brilliant, sparkly meteor painting a broad, sweeping arc across my camera’s field of view. Sadly, that didn’t happen this time around. I did, however, have a really nice time with my best friend and get to drink some ice cold Dew out in the middle of nowhere with my camera. I even had some pro HD video gear with me from work, but it simply wasn’t sensitive enough for the task.

Lots of Bismarck-Mandan residents were “in the know” about the meteor shower; I spotted many of them in my trek out of town to escape the city light. Hopefully they got as good a show as we did. There are more meteor showers coming up this year; if you missed this one, look out for more! Central North Dakota is a great place to go for watching these events, so be sure to take advantage of our location.

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