Calling all my stargazing buddies! Mark your calendars for the night of August 11-12 to view and photograph the best meteor shower of the year: The Perseid Meteor Shower!

First off, if you’d like to check out the video I made about photographing a meteor shower, watch it here!

When is the Perseid Meteor Shower Occurring?

Each year, Perseid meteors streak across the sky between July 17 and August 24.  This is because, during this time of year, Earth passes through a stream of debris left behind by Comet Swift-Tuttle. 

In North America, the peak of the meteor shower will be the night of Wednesday/Thursday, August 11-12.  If you are watching from a dark location, you might be able to see 60-100 meteors per hour.

The best time to view and photograph the Perseid meteor shower will be after midnight (early morning hours of August 12).  The Perseids will be brighter and higher in the sky, putting on an amazing night time display!

This DOES NOT mean there won’t be plenty of meteors to enjoy and photograph before or after this date!  If you are an extreme morning person, or an extreme night owl, you can start looking for meteors during the pre-dawn hours throughout the week of August 9-13 (I know, sadly meteor showers don’t take into account our sleep schedules).

Why Will This be the Best Meteor Shower of the Year?

You will be treated with an even better show because of the moon!

During August 11-12 (peak night), the moon will only be 13 percent full, making it a tiny crescent. Better yet, the moon will be setting well before peak hours (morning of Aug. 12), meaning you will have all night to enjoy watching hundreds of meteors streak across the dark, moonless sky!

But let’s dive into what exactly a meteor shower is and how you can photograph one and capture some amazing images!

What is a Meteor Shower?

A meteor shower is a very awesome celestial event, where a number of meteors seem to come out from one point in the night sky.  This common point is called the radiant or originate.

Meteoroids enter Earth’s atmosphere at extremely fast speeds and are a result of cosmic debris.  Every time earth passes through this cosmic debris (leftover by comets), we see a shower of meteors.

A composite of the Geminids Meteor Shower in 2017!

There are about 9 meteor showers that occur each year, with each one varying in the number of meteors viewable.  The best meteor showers can produce up to 100 meteors per hour, making these astronomical events a memory for years to come!

A fun fact about this particular meteor shower is that these meteors you will be viewing/photographing are crashing into the earth’s atmosphere at around 36 miles (58 kilometers) PER SECOND!  These pieces of rock travel crazy fast but are spectacular to watch!

Where Do You Go to Photograph a Meteor Shower?

To see amazing meteors (and stars), you have to go somewhere dark.  A place far away from any type of light pollution.  The best resource I know of to help you find a location near you is the Dark Site Finder.  Quickly type in your location and use the color-coded key to see places near you that are away from light pollution.  Usually, state and/or national parks are good places to look at.

Once you arrive at your super dark location, you want to know where to look to be able to see the most meteors!

Remember how I mentioned the radiant above?  This is the spot in the sky where you will see most of the meteors come from.  For the Perseid meteor shower, the radiant is located in the constellation Perseus.  

There are a handful of night sky applications available both on Apple and Android devices, that can quickly show you where different constellations are.

Better yet, the app, Photopills (available on both Apple and Android), shows you where the radiant will be and what direction it will move throughout the night!

What Equipment do You Need?

• Camera with Manual Mode
• Wide-Angle Lens with Low Aperture
• STURDY Tripod
• Flashlight/Headlamp
• External Remote

Camera Settings

Shutter Speed: 30 seconds

This shutter speed was chosen because I was planning on shooting a timelapse and wanted to capture as many meteors as I could. 

If you are planning on taking only single images, I would recommend using the rule of 500.  You can learn more about that rule in my article here.

Aperture: F/3.5 or lower

Having a wide aperture allows you to capture the most light.  Choose the lowest f-number available on your lens.

ISO: 3200 – 6400

The ISO will depend on how much noise your camera can handle as well as how dark your location is.

Shoot RAW

Shooting RAW allows you to maintain a lot more information in the image, as compared to JPEG.  This means you have more flexibility when editing, which is always a bonus!

White Balance

The white balance will depend on your personal taste of how you want your night photos to look.  I personally shoot with the customization of Flourescent or Tungsten.

How to Take a Timelapse

For meteor showers, I always shoot a timelapse.  This allows me to not have to anxiously click the shutter button every time I think I see a meteor, and it also gives me the freedom to stargaze and not worry about the camera as much.

The beauty about setting up a timelapse is that it will continuously shoot for hours, capturing basically every second, increasing your chances drastically that you will capture some meteors!

To shoot a timelapse, you need an intervalometer.  When buying one, make sure it is compatible with your exact camera model!

Next, set your interval (the time in between photos), to 1 second.  This means that once your camera finishes an exposure, it waits 1 second, and takes another shot.  I set the number of photos to infinity and then start the timelapse!

So again, the peak of this meteor shower will occur in the late hours of August 11 and early morning hours of August 12.  Maybe try and convince a friend or family member to go out to somewhere dark and watch some meteors crash into our atmosphere.  I can’t think of a better way to start the day… or end the night.

Have fun and keep photographing!