Been a bit under the weather the last couple of weeks...well the better part of the last month really, but finally feeling well enough to step outside this evening and witness a brilliant clear winter sky. Managed to see three nice meteors, one was the largest one I've seen in many years. It arched across the sky covering a full 60% swath between the horizons. As it faded, it broke into several pieces and flamed out a brilliat orange and red. I just missed capturing it with my camera. I was taking a timed exposure of the Orion Nebula when a few seconds after I opened the shutter it arched just outside the field of view. I was using a 500mm lens at the time...with a wider field of view lens I would captured a spectacular firey show.
Sometimes it is difficult to get my barndoor tracker to line up correctly and I spent the majority of the time just trying to align it properly. I never did get it exactly, but it was close enough to allow for 30 second tracked exposures at 500mm.
The best shot of the evening is this one of Orion Nebula. It is an amazingly beautiful part of the night sky and realitively easy to photograph. After about an hour or so, I called it quits because I did not want to breathe that cold night air for too long having barely recovered from a bad respiratory infection. Good thing I did too...I've spent the last thirty minutes coughing.
