The Perseid meteor shower is the best in the year, further enhanced by the lack of a bright Moon to interfere. The source of the Perseid meteor shower is the comet Swift-Tuttle. Because I'm unable to get outside the city, I have sky glow to deal with. As I sat or laid under the darkest sky I could get to, which permited seeing things down to magnitude +5, I watched for the short term meteors as the camera fires off one photo every 2 seconds, each with a 1-second exposure at ISO 800, f/2 and always at 12 mm (25 mm for the 35 mm equivalent).
Meteors come in 2 main flavors. The more familiar flavor are the types that dive straight into the atmosphere, causing the bright streaks that last about a second. These meteors show up as brief blips because they last too short. The other type are long-lasting meteors that skim the upper atmosphere and are very faint. They can last several seconds, even 20 seconds, which makes them show up very well. These are the main meteors that I was after with the camera. If I had better equipment and what not, I could cover a lot more.
19 confirmed meteors were captured in the first day with an odd airplane mixed in. The second day has 3 meteors showing up simultaneously right away.
Why not repeated 1.6-second or 2-second exposures or going 1 second exposures every second? Because I don't have a remote trigger of sorts, I cannot use burst mode. The camera's design has it so that there is a delay after each photo that's just as long if I go the automatic route. I'd have to hold down the shutter button for 2 1/2 hours or even 4 hours straight, which is not practical.
