I headed upstate last week the evening of the Perseid Meteor Shower, to a relatively remote spot in Harriman State Park. I pointed the cam skyward on an intervalometer (aka PC computer) and fired off 45 minutes worth of 30″ exposures. It was the first time that I had every attempted to capture something like this. The first thing that I would do differently is shutter speed. The earth moves a long way in 30 seconds. you can see the star trails in the still image above.
Initially, I wanted to layer all of the images into a composite to show all of the meteors at once. That plan got a bit messy. Instead, I threw them all into this vid below. I sped it up, and looped it 4x. The track “Star Guitar” by Chemical Brothers seemed fitting.
Perseid Meteor Shower from Jacob Breinholt on Vimeo.
I can’t believe the movement in just 30 seconds! I guess at the equator the earth is moving at about 1000 mph, so that is over 8 miles in just 30 seconds. Probably 4 miles or so at your latitude. Far enough to make a difference!