I got up at 3:00 AM this morning to check-out the Leonid meteor shower. I rolled out from between the sheets and waddled over to the window to see if the shower had started yet. The sky was perfect. Inky black, no moon, and tons of bright stars. I was only at the window for a few seconds and, zoom, there went a brilliant meteorite. It was 2-3 minutes before another one went buy... not exactly the "shower" I had envisioned. By 3:45, the frequency had picked up to a least one per minute.
The sky was still crystal clear and black when I walked out into the yard and a few meteorites streaked through the trees. The bare branches painted a pretty pattern against the sky and I thought about shooting some pictures through them. But they were really blocking the view of the meteorites so I headed for the car. I live in the country (northern Minnesota, USA) far from city lights, but the neighbor about 1/4 mile south has a big, bright yard light (why?). So it wouldn't be enough to just walk out of the woods to the fields across the road. I had to find some dense dark. I drove west about 2 miles and parked on the shoulder of the road. When I looked up, the sky was covered with a thin overcast !! Where'd that come from ?? Of the sea of stars that were out just minutes ago, only the brightest were visible now... and no meteorites. Poop. I killed a little time, wandered down the road a bit... and back. Looked up, and the stars were back. Crystal clear and starry again. Oh well, don't question it. Just set up the cameras. The meteor "shower" still hadn't developed. Maybe it had and it was just my expectations were just out of whack; but I decided not to go with three cameras like I'd planned. I set up one K2 with a 20mm lens. For fun, I also set up Dad's old 2 1/4" X 3 1/4" RB Graflex, Series B. Unfortunately the Graflex only has one lens option... 5 1/2" focal length with an f4.5 maximum aperture. That works out to about the equivalent of a 60mm lens on a 35mm format. Not optimal for star gazing, but I figured if I got lucky and caught a meteorite, the large negative would allow for a nice enlargement. Besides, it's Dad's old camera (early 1940's) and I still exercise it once in a while. Working the Graflex in the dark was a trip. "Everything" is manual. You even have to re-wind the shutter spring and crank the shutter curtain back into position by hand between shots. But I think I only screwed up once. Just after completing a 60 second exposure, I realized I hadn't removed the dark-slide from the film pack. Nutz. But no harm done since the film wasn't exposed. Just reset the shutter, shoot again and hope I hadn't missed the best shot of the night. The sky stayed crystal clear until about 6:30 AM. By 6:00 AM the eastern sky was beginning to get light enough that I was concerned about the long exposures washing out, and the meteorite frequency had really dropped off. I was thinking about packing it in but decided to take one more shot with the K2. It was aimed almost straight up... maybe 75-80 degrees... and a little to the east of south. I was about 35 seconds into the exposure and wondering if the light sky hadn't already over-exposed the shot, when a big, bright, wet-one streaked across the sky. It was short (didn't go all the way across the sky), but it was fat and the trail lingered for a little while. I closed the shutter right away. If that exposure isn't over-cooked, it could be the best shot of the night. I only shot 36 exposures of 35mm and one 8-shot roll of 120 roll-film, both were 400 color print film. I'm afraid most of them are going to be yawners, but we'll see. In the few minutes it took to drive back to the house, the sky had become overcast again. I took one last glance skyward before going in the house and nothing... no stars... only gray. The clouds moved in and by mid-morning it was drizzling. I guess the timing of the meteorite shower was perfect for me; it just wasn't as dramatic as I had anticipated. I hope you had clear skies and saw enough shooting stars to wish upon. And I hope you got some decent pictures. Regards, Tim Engel - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
