Perseid Meteor With M31
And The Double Cluster, August 2002
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This is the only reasonable image (out of more than 50 exposed) from the nights of 10 and 11 August 2002. Meteor imaging is completely different from all other types of astro-imaging! I saw about 20 bright meteors during these two nights but was able to capture only two on film. At my site in Sonoma County, California, the sky was clear until dawn on the 10-11th but fogged over around 1:30AM on the night of 11-12th. The marked graininess of this image is partially due to the fast film and partially the result of marked enlargement.
| Date | 10-11 August 2002; approximately 1:30 AM PDT |
| Optics |
Nikkor 24 mm f/3.3 on Nikon F100, piggybacked on Astro-Physics GTO1200 mount. Guided with ST-4 on a separate guidescope. |
| Exposure | Fuji NHG II - 800, 1 @ 3 min, no filters, normal processing. |
| Processing |
Stretched and color balanced in PhotoShop; smoothed with BGSmooth 10-60 and Photoshop Gaussian blur. |