(meteorobs) Meteor photography and fisheye lens advice please

[Leo S]

There are actually a few things to take into consideration.

Firstly, how efficient your camera/lens system is at capturing meteors. 
The best way to tackle this issue is to download the software here that 
you can input all your details, and it will tell you the relative 
efficiency of the lenses you have:
http://www.analemma.de/english/download.html

Secondly, what are you trying to achieve? Because fish-eyes and wides 
cover so much sky area, most meteors will appear very small, and lacking 
an detail, although a fish-eye might be perfect for catching grazers.

A higher mm lens will capture more detail in the meteor, but you risk 
either catching only part of it in the frame, or missing it altogether. 
There is no ideal  single-camera solution for all situations, so you 
need to weigh up the possibilities, and make a choice based on your 
requirements.

If you want purely photogenic, and detailed photographs of meteors, the 
ideal solution is to use multiple cameras with normal lenses 
(35mm-50mm), and cover as much of the sky with them as possible. This is 
what I do, and I will be using 5 DSLRs this year for the first time.

Leo



Mike Hankey wrote:
> from astrotopix:
>
> You can go about 1.5 magnitudes fainter with each doubling of
> aperture. So if I were shooting the 16mm at f/2.8 at 5.7mm aperture,
> and an 85mm f/1.8 shooting wide open at an aperture of 47mm, that
> would be about a little more than a three times doubling of the
> aperture. So the 85mm can record stars that are about 4.5 mags
> fainter.
>
> On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 5:13 PM, Thomas Ashcraft <ashcraft at heliotown.com> wrote:
>   
>> Leo S wrote:
>>     
>>> What specific info are you looking for regarding fish-eye lenses?
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>> Hi Leo and all,
>>
>> I recently learned that my local camera store rents out fisheye lenses
>> by the night and I am thinking of renting a lens for the Leonids to fit
>> onto a Canon T1i dSLR camera. . But I don't know what types of fisheye
>> lenses would be best suited for meteors.
>>
>> Any suggestions are welcome. For example, what mm lens is optimum?
>>
>> Thank you in advance again.
>>
>> Thomas
>>
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