A Night to Remember

In my other blog I told about my trip to a dark spot in Southern California where I watched the Perseid Meteor Shower. I hinted that there might be a time-lapse movie of the goings on in the sky that night.

Here it is.

I went to a scenic view spot southeast of Julian where I watched one of the spectacular appearances of the Leonid Meteor Shower. It was a popular spot. Several people were already there when I arrived around 9:00PM.

I set the camera on its tripod and aimed it to the northeast. I took a few test shots with various ISO settings and exposure times. I settled on 15 second exposures and an ISO sensitivity of 2000. I set my intervalometer to take pictures every 16 seconds. I started taking my pictures of the sky around 9:30.

The camera happily took pictures until about a quarter after two. Then the battery died. Somehow I noticed that it was no longer clicking. I replaced the battery with my spare. I managed to swap the batteries with only a four and a half minute gap without even moving the camera much.

I let the camera continue snapping away for a little more than an hour. I then was feeling very tired and decided to head home.

I made the video at a rate of 15 frames per second. The nearly six hours are compressed to a minute and 21 seconds.

I was surprised to see that there is as much traffic in Southern California's skies as there is on its freeways.

I captured some bright meteors in the pictures. Since they appear only in single frames of the video they don't move and they appear for only 1/15th of a second. You can see some of the meteors if you happen to be looking at the spot where they appear but you won't see any motion, just flashes.

I'd like to do this again without the glow of Palm Springs at the bottom of the frame. But the glow adds some interest, I think.

The spot had cars coming and going through the night. Their lights occasionally light up the bushes in the foreground. Again, I think that added interest. A few times the cars went around the loop the wrong way and their headlights aimed directly on the camera's lens making some bright, full-image flares. Oh, well.

Remember, you can watch in HD by selecting the resolution at the bottom right of the player. You can watch in full-screen mode, too.