Contains:  Extremely wide field
Perseids 2023 meteor shower, Behnam Darvish

Perseids 2023 meteor shower

Perseids 2023 meteor shower, Behnam Darvish

Perseids 2023 meteor shower

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

Here is a composite image capturing this year's remarkable Perseid meteor shower. It is taken during the peak of activity in the early morning hours. I used the same approched presented here: https://www.astrobin.com/tze9i9/.
For the composition, I used a modified Canon 6D at ISO 3200 paired with a Rokinon 14 mm lens set at f/2.8. The photographic sequence consisted of 534 x 20 second exposures. This spanned nearly 3 hours, starting at ~ 1:15 am local time on August 13th, 2023. The camera remained fixed on a tripod, with a single rotation towards the North only once half-way through to ensure enough spatial coverage between frames, for the sake of easier registration later.
Within the field of view, 34 bright meteors appeared. For the "reference sky" frame, I chose the frame that would maximize meteor count, leading to 30 meteors at the end (28 of which are Perseids). This reference sky  is a stack of 9 consecutive 20-second exposures, chosen from the entire collection. The foreground of the composition includes a silhouette of distant mountains and me, positioned in front of the camera and directed my index finger towards the radiant point. This single, 10-second exposure was captured just before starting the sequence. I should say I tried probably 20 different arm orientations before selecting the one that best aligned with the radiant point later.
I used APP to register the "frames with meteors" to the "reference frame". The majority of the frames were successfully registered but a few of them were not due to the large field of view and lens distortion I guess. For those, I manually aligned them with the help of nearby (in time) frames with meteors and the orientation of the stars. This manual alignment was really time-consuming and gladly there were only 6 or 7 of the frames that would not register automatically with APP. Finally, meteors were extracted and integrated into the sky frame using layering techniques in GIMP. A similar level of stretching was applied to both the reference frame and the meteor frames before adding them to preserve the brightness level.
Although I saw many fainter and fast-moving meteors visually, not all were seen within the frames. Faster optics or a more sensitive detector would definitely capture them. It is also possible that I missed them while checking the frames for meteors. This year's meteor shower proved to be a great one, particularly in the early morning hours. I saw instances of double and even triple meteors at once. Also, the sky's level of airglow was astoundingly vibrant. 
I only wish I had a better lens. The copy of the Rokinon 14 mm lens used here makes ugly star shapes with excessive coma and distortion across the frame, even when stopped down. As a result, I made a starless version of the image as well. Enjoy!

Comments

Revisions

  • Final
    Perseids 2023 meteor shower, Behnam Darvish
    Original
  • Perseids 2023 meteor shower, Behnam Darvish
    B

B

Description: The starless version

Uploaded: ...

Histogram

Perseids 2023 meteor shower, Behnam Darvish