(meteorobs) Perseids 2009 photo results (from Eastern Ontario)

Pierre Martin dob14.5 at sympatico.ca
Sat Sep 5 17:06:03 EDT 2009


Hello all,

To be honest, this year's Perseids were the most active I've ever seen  
of them (not having been in the right area of the world to see the  
1991-94 outbursts).  Ivo Leupi and I experienced two wonderful full  
nights (Aug 11/12 and 12/13) at Westmeath Lookout, a beautiful rise  
overlooking the Ottawa valley.  The second night was especially  
stunning, with a good transparent sky and a decent limit mag average  
of 5.8 despite the bright gibbous Moon (my tripod-mounted umbrella did  
the trick quite nicely in blocking the glare).  I observed all of both  
nights (minus just a bit of early evening dissipating clouds on the  
11th).  Was it ever worth it!!!

As evidenced on the IMO's Visual Data Quicklook page (which shows  
exactly what happened with the Perseids based on several thousands of  
Perseids collected from observers around the world) at http://www.imo.net/live/perseids2009/ 
, the 2009 Perseids were unusually active with three distinct peaks!   
We can thank Saturn for steering the Perseid stream's dusty core  
closer to Earth's path.  I was fortunate to witness much of this  
activity, including the brief surge which occurred at 4:00am EDT on  
the morning of August 12.  Then, a significantly more intensive  
outburst occurred on the following morning of August 13.  Around  
2:00am EDT that night, the hourly zenithal rates exceeded a zenith  
hourly rate (ZHR) of 200 meteors per hour!  For a while, there was a  
continuous stream of several meteors every minute, with occasional  
bursts of nearly simultaneous meteors!  I couldn't believe how busy  
things were, especially considering how high up the Moon was.  At the  
end of the night, I had seen a total of over 400 meteors.  This kind  
of overall activity appears to have been the strongest that the  
Perseids have been since the early 1990's.  Large numbers of bright  
"classical" Perseids appeared, many with trains.  I can only imagine  
how much better of a show it would have been had the skies been  
unaffected by moonlight.  It was a night that I won't soon forget!

After several hours combining frames and processing in Photoshop, I  
finally have my photos!  Each photo is a composite of frames  
containing meteors captured over the course of hundreds of 20 seconds  
exposures taken continuously between roughly 10:00pm and 5:00am (for  
almost 7 hours).  Processing was done to enhance levels, brightness &  
contrast, plus some noise/artifacts and CA reductions.  The colors  
that you see in the meteor streaks are unaltered and true to the way  
that the camera captured them.

Here's what I got on the first night (August 11/12)...

This first image is the composite taken by the Canon 30D running at  
ISO 640 or 800 and a 16mm lens set at f/2.8.  It shows the sky  
surrounding Ursa Minor and Ursa Major.  As you can see near the  
horizon, it was becoming quite foggy, but our elevation on top of the  
hill was helpful.  Many of the bright meteors that you see here  
occurred near 4:00am EDT, so they are likely part of the dust trail  
that Comet Swift Tuttle shed back in the year 1610.  The Earth  
encountered this trail near 4:00am on August 12, which produced a  
brief surge of activity...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13845235@N03/3841919408/sizes/o/

The second image is the composite taken by the Canon Rebel (300D)  
running at ISO 800 or 1600 and a 35mm lens set at f/2.2.  I left this  
camera centered into Cygnus all night, which was a bit less affected  
by the moonlight.  Some nice colorful meteors scooted by this area...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13845235@N03/3841126859/sizes/o/

Next are my results for the second night (August 12/13) which had  
overall MUCH higher activity!!  The Canon 30D and a 16mm lens at f/2.8  
managed to capture scores of meteors over the course of the night!!   
I'm thrilled to share this composite of 54 meteors (all Perseids),  
which is probably the one I'm most proud of.  The large number of  
meteors define the radiant as a sharp point.  Look for the tiny  
Perseid just left of the famous Double Cluster in Perseus...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13845235@N03/3841920210/sizes/o/

The second composite is the result of the Rebel (300D) and a 35mm lens  
at f/2.2.  This one got five nice meteors in Cygnus, scooting across  
the Milky Way.  The North American neb is visible (barely) below  
Deneb.  The trade-off with this lens is less meteors captured due to  
the longer focal length's narrower field, but a closer view on the  
ones that do show up...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13845235@N03/3841127545/sizes/o/

It turns out that this August has had my most successful observing run  
in recent memory, with 9 separate meteor outings!  My observing  
partner, Ivo, also managed to capture several beautiful images with  
his DSLR.  Sorry for reporting so late, but my busy schedule (and my  
catching up on sleep ;) has prevented me from doing so earlier  
(although I was able to get my raw data out to the IMO fairly  
quickly).  My standard NAMN summary reports containing the details for  
both peak nights, as well as my post-max sessions should be coming  
soon :)

Clear skies!

- Pierre





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