Yesterday I watched a video about a young man cyclingacross the Sahara desert. One of the things he says near the beginning of the video is that it is when you put yourself in situations like these that you really feel alive.
Also in the news yesterday, was lots of press about the annual Perseid meteor shower. While going out at night to view a meteor shower in significantly less dangerous than riding a bike across the Sahara desert, it was an opportunity to seize the moment and just do it.
So that is what I did. I discussed with Rachel, if she wanted to come where we might go to get some good views. We found a spot in Boothstown on a bridge over the canal. We were there just a few moments and we saw our 1st 'shooting star'. I wanted to capture an image of one but as we were looking east from the west side of Manchester there was a lot of light pollution. So I dropped my wife and little boy back home at about 2am and this time alone dashed out into the Peak District. There was a car park I was recently introduced to with a short walk to a small hill which would have given a great view of the night sky.
Again, it didn't take long to spot a little meteorite or two. But I wanted a picture. I set up the tripod, pointed the camera up, played with the settings and kept hitting the shutter button. The pictures were 30 second exposures and the meteorites when you did see them were very bright. Brighter than the stars. But they were very brief. Like a tiny spark in the sky. So given the short nature of the meteorite, it was hit an miss as to whether I would capture one. You can't predict these things either. They hit the atmosphere at random times and appear in random parts of the sky. So it was just a case of keep taking photos and hope that one shows up while the sensor is open.
After an hour, the exhilarating feeling was leaving me. I was starting to get cold and I was confident I hadn't snapped a meteorite.
I arrived home about 4:30am, but before I could go to bed, I had to upload the pictures from the memory card to the computer to review and see if I had snapped one or not.
Given how long the exposures were it is easy to put some visible features in some of the pictures down to environmental factors. But towards the end of my batch I found the following image. I've added another image looking at the same spot of the sky for comparison. You can see a streak just to the right of the center of the image just below a distinctively yellow star (or galixy, possibly Andromeda).
Was it worth it. Ask my wife and I and you will probably get different answers. I'm feeling very tired today after just a few hours sleep. But I am defiantly pleased I went out and did something out of the ordinary, something rather cool, and maybe crazy too, even if I didn't get the stunning image I was hoping for. I did still get some great pictures of the stars and I will always remember this night.
I should sign off this post by expressing gratitude. I'm grateful that I had the means and the health to do this. With no job, I probably could not afford a car to find a suitable spot to star gaze. Without previous experience in the pennine hills, I wouldn't have been able to go where I ended up. Without a passion for hiking I wouldn't have considered the little ascent to my final spot and obviously without my health I wouldn't have made it up the hill either. Without the type of job I have I wouldn't have been able to come into work so late today and without a photographer for a wife, I probably wouldn't have the camera to capture the images and the post processing know how to tweak them and get the most out of them.
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