The 2016 Perseid Meteor Shower was certainly memorable – made all the more so from a scenic perch high above iconic Yosemite Valley. This image is a composite of 25 separate images selected from an all-night set of sequential exposures during the night of August 11-12, 2016. The exposures were made using a 14-mm wide-angle lens on a Nikon D800E. The exposure settings were: ISO of 6400, f/3.2 with a shutter speed of 20 seconds. Each image contains a single meteor and was carefully aligned to account for the rotation of the earth during the course of the night. The fading alpenglow of the setting sun gently lights the west face of El Capitan, while the faint cone of the morning zodiacal light, or, “false dawn” extends upwards from the eastern horizon just to the left of Half Dome in the distance. The headlights of cars mark the road traveling to and from the valley. The image is filled with a host of night sky treasures, including the central band of the Milky Way, the Pleiades, the Perseus Double Cluster and much more. What a night to remember!
Check out NASA’s pic of the day! http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160818.html
– BPSOP Instructor – Mike Shaw
Mike Teaches: Star Trails & Night Photography