Friday 28 August 2015

METEORS - PIPISTRELLE BATS AND CATS


The Annual 13th of August Perseid Meteor shower took me off to the Llyn Clywedog reservoir
on the 12th of August, but due to a weather forecast for cloud, the next night I chose Lake Vyrnwy.

The first night on the 12th

 Llyn Clywedog reservoir was one of the darkest area of Wales I have visited
for a meteor event, a very clear bright starry view, with the milky way clearly viewed through
the upper most part of the sky, the most defined milky way I had ever seen!! (in the UK).
I had though there was a chance to capture a meteor burning through the milky way, but alas no luck this night, but..........to see the Milky way this clear, with no light pollution was reward enough.

See the image below with the Milky way stretching the length of the image, next time I will make a panoramic image, to capture even more of this celestial display. 


Sony A900..... ISO1600                  © J.R.Arrowsuch

As usual with a major meteor event, we saw some of the Perseid's but the camera set to expose via a digital intervalometer, no Meteors were imaged whilst the shutter was open?. 
The Sony A900 was set up in BULB mode ISO 1600 lens(20mm),15 seconds exposure at  f3.5 and dark frame subtraction on each image taken.

After an hour the fog moved in from the  Llyn Clywedog reservoir, the temperature tumbled, almost like it was Autumn, dew enveloped the camera and the car and that put pay to this night's
image gathering. You can see the moment the fog rolled in from this next image.
Fog rolls in


The second night on the 13th

The second night took me off further north (still in Wales) to Lake Vyrnwy, a much milder night with the local wild life very active, Owls hooting and Bats in flight not to mention the local cats on the prowl.
The Bats, (possibly pipistelle) where flying round our heads, the torch light attracting the insects and the insects attracting the Bats, I would have tried to photograph them
but my mission was the Meteor shower, so that was what I concentrated on, besides I was missing a flash.
Here is a image by; Barracuda1983

CC image by Barracuda1983


108 images 1 Meteor, with the timings set into the intervalometer, it's all about mother nature cooperating,
I did observe at least 6 Meteors within the lens area, but they were only visible on the mirror lockup timing or the dark frame subtraction timing, very frustrating, ideally another second camera, set up to take up the off sequence, would be a solution, but I only have one top brand DSLR.   
  PLOUGH & PERSEID                                © JOHN R ARROWSUCH



Lake  Vyrnwy as you can see from the above image, is not a perfect location for a Meteor event, due to the distant light pollution.
 My next night event is the full Moon (super Moon) over the River Trent.

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