Post Perseids post

This year the Perseid meteor shower peaked on the 12th and 13th of August. I’ve been setting up cameras to watch the sky from the 11th to the 15th.

The following photos are taken with either a Nikon D3300 with a Samyang 16mm f/2 or a Sony a5000 with a Zhongyii Speedbooster and a Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lens set to f/2. You’ll see the later setup giving much clearer and better-looking images even though their aperture is the same. That is because the light-gathering capability of a lens is not only dictated by the aperture but by the focal length too. If you take the 16mm lens and divide the focal length by the aperture size, you’ll find it only lets light through an 8mm diameter opening. With the 50mm lens - also set to f/2 - it’s letting light through a 25mm opening. Cool stuff.

The picture taking on the Nikon side was handled by my IRTimelapse app, while the Sony used this application. I also included a video showing the satellite traffic towards North-East skies one night.

I tried to aim toward Andromeda and the Milky Way with some success. It would have been much better if I had a clear view towards the horizon, but I’m not about to get shot by the forest.