Leonids
Posted 19 November 2001
During the night of 17-18 November, the earth passed through a cloud of dust particles from the tail of comet Tempel-Tuttle. As these particles passed into the earth’s atmosphere, they resulted in a spectacular meteor shower. Because the radiant, or point in the sky from which the meteors seem to originate, is in the constellation Leo, the meteors are called the Leonids.
I had already intended to be at El Mirage dry lake in the Mojave Desert north of LA that weekend to watch the SCTA trials. Since the Mojave is a great place for stargazing, I decided to bring my camera along and see if I could get any time exposures of the meteor shower. After a bit of napping early in the evening, I awoke about midnight and, looking up out of my sleeping bag, noticed a couple of shooting stars above. Though this was well before the anticipated peak of activity, at about 2:00am, I got dressed and set up my camera.
In person, the meteor shower was spectacular, coming in waves for about an hour and a half. Photographing the meteors, however, was problematic as the sky is large and you were lucky if meteors appeared in your camera’s field of view during the time the shutter was open.
I have little experience with astronomy time exposures. I looked at some Websites on the subject, and they had surprisingly little information about what film types, f-stops and shutter speeds worked best. Based on my experiences with the Leonids, I would have used some different settings and film, and perhaps caught more than just the brightest meteors. All the time exposures below were taken with a Minolta SRT-101 and Kodak Gold 200 ASA color print film at an f-stop of 5.6.
El Mirage Sunset
Not related to the Leonids, but I thought I’d start the series with a shot of the gorgeous sunset we had on Saturday night. Motor homes at bottom belong to SCTA spectators, shrouded in the dust that lingers whenever the wind stops blowing.
Looking at northeast horizon, two minute exposure
The problem with all these photos is the film is not fast enough and the lens is not open all the way. I think I could have got more meteors if I had got more light through the camera. The meteor is at the center left of this image. The streaks at the bottom are idiots driving around in the dark at 1:30 in the morning.
Looking at northern horizon, four minute exposure
All but one of the stars are fainter than the meteor, which is just above and to the left of the center of the photo. The bright lights at lower right are some campers. Tiny white spots are dirt on the scanned print.
Looking up to the northwest, five minute exposure
The closer you are looking to Polaris, the shorter the distance the stars move during your time exposure. The meteor should be obvious in this one.
Looking at western horizon, five minute exposure
It finally got too cold to stand around making time exposures, so around 3:00am I got back into my sleeping bag and watched the show from there. Before I went to bed, however, I made this image of neighboring camps, including my parents’ motor home to the left. The lights in the distance are from over a hundred camps of SCTA racers and spectators, about a mile away.