20. November 2002
Shooting the Leonid meteor storm
Every year in November (this year the 18. and the 19.) the Earth passes through dust tails from the comet Temple-Tuttle.
The Earth passes through two dust tails, one was "left" there in 1767 and the second one in 1866.
When particles from this dust-tail - we are talking particles as small as grains of sand - enters the Earth atmosphere at speeds of about 250.000 km/h (156.000 miles/h) they simply burn up and leaves a light-path high up in the atmosphere for less than a second or so. In fact, if a particle the size of a golf-ball should enter the atmosphere the resulting light would strong enough to cast shadows on the Earth(!) These "strikes of light" is what one wants to photograph!

I have never photographed this phenomenon before. Actually I've never made any kind of "astro photography" before, but this year I was tempted after reading a very informative article by Michael Reichmann on the Luminous-Landscape site about this issue.
In Denmark - where I live - the first "tail" was the one to photograph. The Earth entered that at 5 am local time (CET) while the second one came at 11.30 am when the daylight made it impossible to see not to mention photograph.
As I understood from M. Reichmanns article, the second trail was the best one to photograph in North America.

The problems of shooting these meteors here in Denmark (or in most part of Europe) at this time of year is that clouds often covers the sky making it impossible to see or photograph anything. The weather forecast looked promising this year though, so I gave it a try.

Before reading on, let me warn you that I wasn't successful in shooting any meteors. I did shoot some stars though...

Choosing a site
The moon (in west) was almost full which of course is a problem, since the strong light could prevent seeing the weaker meteors. So I choose a place in which the moon would be hidden by some giant chalk formations facing east towards the sea not far from where I live. There I could stand on the beach, having these "chalk cliffs" to the west, the sea to the east while photographing the meteors in the south-east direction.
Well, of course a building or tree could have hidden the moon as well, but this place would offer a more "dramatic" scene I thought.
Since the chalk formation I'm talking about - called Møns Klint - is facing east, it's a good place to photograph when the sun is rising, which I did this summer. You will find these pictures in the right column of this page.

Preparing
What films to use? What shutter times and apertures?
Being an astro-photography beginner I had no real idea about what to do.
Again the article from M. Reichmann helped me. He suggest using negatives for their greater exposure latitude. I'm not used to using negative films, so I mainly brought transparency films.
I used my Bessa R2 with a 15mm Super Wide Heliar lens on and my Rolleiflex 2.8GX (of course) which has an 80mm Planar lens.
Instead of writing down what apertures and speeds I was using at the spot, I made an "exposure time plan" before I went.
I simply took a bunch of films with me and beforehand I've noted aperture and time combinations that I would like to try out and then simply followed them when I was there. Remember that the build-in lightmeters of the cameras is of no use when shooting in the dark.
I figured times from 5 sec. to 2 minutes would be the intervals to try.
So here are the combinations I wanted to try out:
Rolleiflex (12 frames/film):
f2.8 and f4.0 : 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 12, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 60 sec.

Bessa R2 (36 frames/film):
f4.5 and f5.6 : 3x5, 3x8, 3x10, 3x12, 3x15, 3x20, 3x25, 3x30, 3x40, 3x60, 3x80, 3x120 sec. (3 frames of each)

This wide range of exposure times reflects my very limited knowledge and experience of what exposure times to use and exactly what to expect from the different times.
I do not have any automatic timer so I simply used a wrist watch. I held the watch to my ear, to hear the seconds ticking away and counted with that - primitive but that was the least of my problems (in fact I think this approach worked OK).

The Reality
Now, one thing is theory and another is reality!
The closer I got to the site the heavier the clouds became. I still walked from the parking lot down to the beach, since I hoped that the clouds would either clear up, or be less thick at the actual site.
The clouds was NOT clearing up and only got thicker when I arrived at the beach I was going to shoot from. I waited a few minutes or so, everything else was perfect it wasn't too cold and the site would have been great if it wasn't for the clouds.
I gave up and in the lack of a "plan B" I simply drove towards a clearer sky. Finally somewhat after the peak of the meteor storm I found a spot without clouds, but with no "cover" for the moon. I had to try anyway.
After just one film there I had to move on to a new location and shot only one film there also - a frustrating story.

The Results
Because of my unluck on the site I've chosen my time got limited and I didn't manage to expose all the frames I wanted before the show was over. Now that I know that I didn't got any of the meteors on film I could of course just have stayed there and photographed the stars, but I can do that another day.
I didn't expose any frames longer than about 60 seconds - and those are the only ones just remotely useful - they are extremely dark still and the ones presented here have been lightened up in Photoshop.

60sec., f2.8, Fuji Provia 100F, Rolleiflex 2.8GX
You're right, not exactly big art. Everything looks blurred. The clouds are moving the stars are moving (the Earth is rotating to be more precise) and the small branches in front are waving in the wind.

60sec., f4.5, Kodak Elitechrom 100, Bessa R2 with 15mm Super Wide Heliar
Here I've moved to a small town, so artificial light is involved here. The moon is just behind the tall building.

Conclusion
Well, had the weather been better at the spot I've chosen I might have had more time to experiment and might have gotten better pictures, but I now know that to be successful and not just rely on shear luck you really should have a camera set up to shot away on it's own. Relying only on mechanical, hand-operated cameras is a bit frustrating and time consuming - while you're winding the film you should actually be shooting! I don't know exactly what equipment is needed, but a more automated setup might help to get a good shot.
I will definitely try to shoot meteor showers again, but next time - if weather permits - I'll rather simply shoot from my backyard instead of finding an "exotic" place. Being on the same spot and shoot lots of frames is better for a beginner like me, than to drive around trying to find a location when it's too late!

I've learned a bit about shooting stars and about exposure times. For these setups I need to expose for longer than 60 sec. - but will any meteors show up with exposures that long?

Links
• Luminous-Landscape : Read Michael Reichmann's description of what to do when shooting meteors