I didn't hold out much hope of any decent photography during the three day weekend in the Lake District my wife Liz and I planned for late November 2017.
Not exactly the time of year for dry weather in this part of the world - those lakes are there for a reason!
But I was pleasantly suprised when the Saturday and Sunday turned out to be reasonably clear, and even more importantly, Saturday night through to Sunday morning was both clear and cold.
The reason for my excitement was that the peak of the Leonid meteor shower was on Saturday night into early Sunday morning, and with reasonably little light pollution and no moon I was hopeful of being able to photograph at least some meteors against the stars.
So once astronomical twilight had passed and the sky had reached full darkness I set my camera up in 'star gazing' mode and set it off recording the stills for this time lapse video, plonked down in the car park of the cottage where we were staying, taking care to avoid glare from the annoying security lights that came on and off when anyone passed by.
Details of my 'star gazing' camera set up are given in the video data section, with the addition of a battery powered homemade lens heater to keep the front element of my camera's lens from fogging up - a problem I'd been plagued with on cold nighttime shoots in the past - but no longer!
For this session I kept the camera shooting away for just under two hours until it was time for bed when I brought it back inside ready for another session in the early hours.
Back home I created this time lapse video from the stills I took.
No sign of any meteors I'm afraid, but a very nice view of the milky way rotating through the frame as a few clouds blew across the night sky.
Filename - stars timelapse 05.mp4
Camera - Canon EOS 6D
Lens - 14mm prime
Exposure (start of sequence) - 15 secs @ f2.8, ISO6400
Exposure (end of sequence) - 15 secs @ f2.8, ISO6400
Filters - None.
Shooting interval - 15 seconds
Location - Above Windermere, Lake District, England
This clip - HD 720p, 30fps
Clip duration - 14 seconds
All content copyright © Howard Litherland 2009-2024 unless otherwise stated.