Looking for The Perseid Meteor Shower

I was out in the very early hours on August 12 and August 13, scanning the sky to spot the Perseid Meteor Shower. This year, I didn’t see any meteors, possibly due to the occasional high, thin clouds. I did see the Pleiades, and a nice bonus of a very brilliant Venus rising in the east. Here are two (meteor-free) photos.

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February Stargazing

We had record warm temperatures the day before – 69 degrees. While it was still chilly the next morning, the mid-40s before dawn in February is tolerable weather to do some stargazing and star photography.  A slice of the moon was intruding but it wasn't bothersome.  Here are photos that I took this morning, while some cirrus clouds crawled into the skies.

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Orion and Planets Shine Bright

There were some high, wispy clouds in the sky before dawn, but there were enough gaps to get some quick star and planet photos this morning. Sun rise was about 2 hours away,  but there was some light from the sun hitting the clouds high in the atmosphere, plus ambient light from ground level. This gave the clouds - barely visible to the eye - some lovely color with the long exposure. It’s a great time of year to see Orion in the southern sky, and I was lucky that Jupiter, Mars, and Venus were visible in the eastern sky. Here are a few photos. These pictures are single images (not stacked photos), all taken with a wide aperture and a 30 second exposure.

The constellation Orion is visible, identified by the three stars that comprise the "belt.")

(Jupiter is near the center of the photo, with Mars and Venus below and slightly left.The tree in the following photos appear green from light being cast by a nearby outdoor light fixture.)

All Content © Chris A. Zimmer and chriszimmer.blogspot.com

Check out my blog home page for the latest information, chriszimmer.blogspot.com, here.