Two nights on Rainier and Perseids

sidd

This is my first post here - hopefully you guys like it.

I went to Rainier on Thursday night with a group of friends to watch the meteors. We set up tent at Ohanapecosh, but ended up not sleeping there. Instead we drove to Backbone ridge, and watched the meteors from there. It was an awesome show.

Apologies about the big thumbnail - I need to fix that in smugmug.

Some photos from that night:

(1) Meteor



(2) Meteor



(3) Stacked star trails:



(4) And a time lapse video of the time we were there:

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The second day me and my girlfriend went to sunrise point, as I wanted to get the mountain more in the picture. We were very lucky, as within 10 min of setting up the camera, I got a bright meteor appearing to land in Rainier. That was the brightest I had seen. I cannot say for sure whether it hit Rainier or not, but there are some interesting wisp of dust(?) cloud which suggests that it did. It was an awesome sight. Here is a shot, and the timelapse:


(5) Rainier




(6) Timelapse of second day

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Thanks for looking.

-Siddhartha

kdog

Welcome, and awesome first post!

You got some great meteors there, Siddhartha. Your photography is excellent, and I really, really love the timelapse videos. Any chance I could get you to tell us how you did those?

Cheers,
-joel

Icebear

That little "after trail" swirly thing is mind boggling. Nice work.

Robbug

Welp - gonna trash my time lapse now . These are AWESOME. And it does look like a meteor impacted Mt. Rainier. That is wild. I am sure it didn't but it sure looks like it. Would have seen an ejection of material and probably a bit more of a bright flash due to the speeds. More than likely the vaporization trail was blown away from the upper currents. And your perspective was perfect/lucky. When a meteor burns up in the atmosphere it ionizes the surrounding gases - hence different colors from oxygen, nitrogen, argon and other traces all burn at different temps and colors.

Great photos and great captures. I was also at sunrise but the night before and also suffered from the car lights.

And welcome to the forums!

Sexy6Chick

Love the time lapses! From someone who didn't get to witness any it makes me feel like I saw it.

schmoo

Robbug wrote: »

Welp - gonna trash my time lapse now . These are AWESOME. And it does look like a meteor impacted Mt. Rainier. That is wild. I am sure it didn't but it sure looks like it. Would have seen an ejection of material and probably a bit more of a bright flash due to the speeds. More than likely the vaporization trail was blown away from the upper currents. And your perspective was perfect/lucky. When a meteor burns up in the atmosphere it ionizes the surrounding gases - hence different colors from oxygen, nitrogen, argon and other traces all burn at different temps and colors.

Great photos and great captures. I was also at sunrise but the night before and also suffered from the car lights.

And welcome to the forums!

I love that we have a resident astronomer to explain this stuff in detail!

Sidd your shots are just incredible and your time lapses are completely humbling... not just in skill of capturing and putting them together, but in that it makes us aware of how small our tiny place is in the vast universe. (What does it meeeean???)

ghinson

Fabulous. Amazing time lapses. I would love to know your intervalometer/exposure settings. Are these something like 25 sec exposures, f2.8, high ISO, and shot every 30 sec or so on the timer? If it is a long exposure, I am having trouble seeing how the twirly vapor trail even showed up. Teach us!!!

Roaddog 52

Outstanding images.

I too was in the park Thursday night, but I am going to have to do a lot more studying to come up with something even close to what you captured. I had better luck with the sunrise from Tipsoo Lake.

bryanj87

Welcome! Great shots you've got there. Can't wait to see more.

sgonen

These shots are great and the time lapse is amazing - the one that "hits" Rainier - Holy Smokes!

dlplumer

Welcome. Excellent shots. #5 is my favorite. clap

Ric Grupe

Fantastic!

Love the video.

sidd

Thanks all for the encouraging comments!

kdog wrote: »

Welcome, and awesome first post!

You got some great meteors there, Siddhartha. Your photography is excellent, and I really, really love the timelapse videos. Any chance I could get you to tell us how you did those?

Cheers,
-joel

ghinson wrote: »

Fabulous. Amazing time lapses. I would love to know your intervalometer/exposure settings. Are these something like 25 sec exposures, f2.8, high ISO, and shot every 30 sec or so on the timer? If it is a long exposure, I am having trouble seeing how the twirly vapor trail even showed up. Teach us!!!

I was shooting with two cameras (1DIII and 5DII)- and both of them were on very high iso (3200), wide aperture (2.0 and 2.8). I think the exposure time was between 15-30 sec. I have seen anything more than 30sec - the starts stars to visibly move creating the trail. I wanted crisp stars with the meteor streak if I could - and I just got lucky. I had to spend to sleepless nights in a row though

I recently started dabbling in video - so the time lapse was created in Premiere Pro from the sequence of stills.

-Sidd

jpc

Good grief. You can actually see a smoke trail after it hits the peak. That's nuts!

TreyHoff

One of the most impressive things I've seen! Great Job.

dogwood

Wow. These are fantastic!

jamesl

These are absolutely awesome! Love the timelapse, and the perseid and Rainier is perfect. Well done!

nowandthen

Thanks for the inspiration.