meteor shower

Perseids and other sky-borne delights

Posted on by Patrick
A meteor streaks above the aurora

Last night was clear, so I went out to see if I could catch any of the Per­sei­ds. I saw a half-dozen, but I only caught one bright one on camera.

That’s OK, though; there was plen­ty for me to take pho­tos of.

The Milky Way

The Milky Way
The Milky Way

Aurora Borealis

Aurora Borealis, faint and near the northern horizon
Aurora Borealis just above the horizon

Jupiter

Jupiter, with (I think) Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto visible

Star Trails

Star trails, almost circular
Star trails

Oh, and a meteor

A meteor streaks above the aurora

I was out in the dark for a cou­ple hours, and it was worth it.

Writing Retreat 2021, day 4

Posted on by Patrick
Close-up: meteor burning up in the sky

On Wednes­day, I:

  • Rewrote a scene in “The Slow Apocalypse”
  • Got lunch to go from the local cof­feeshop with my friend Tim, who’s on his way home from camp­ing at Wasagaming
  • Con­tin­ued out­lin­ing for “Praise the Torch”
  • Went for a bike ride (it was pret­ty windy, but at least it was at my back on the way back to the cabin)
  • Drove to a side road off Moun­tain Road and watched for Perseids

I saw about six or eight mete­ors with the naked eye, and caught a few small ones and one longer one with my cam­era. I was on the side road in the dark for about an hour. Maybe I was too ear­ly for the 40–60/hour that the web­sites claimed you’d see on the peak night of the mete­or shower.

  • Long shot of a meteor burning up in the sky
  • Star Trails
Long shot of a meteor burning up in the skyStar Trails

Series: Writing Retreat 2021

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2021, Day Zero; Writ­ing Retreat, Day One; Writ­ing Retreat, day 2; Writ­ing Retreat 2021, day 3; Writ­ing Retreat 2021, day 4; Writ­ing Retreat 2021, day 5; Writ­ing Retreat 2021, day 6.

Geminids 2020

Posted on by Patrick
A meteor streaks over the horizon

The Gem­i­nids peak tonight. I went out in the coun­try­side for about half an hour. I saw a few mete­ors with the naked eye, and I man­aged to catch a few on cam­era. This is the bright­est one, by far, a green­ish streak just above the north­east­ern horizon.

View full size.

It was so cold my cam­era battery—fully charged when I left the house—lasted only 20 min­utes. This par­tic­u­lar shot was about 10 frames (2½ min­utes) before the bat­tery died.