Cathedral Perseids

I backpacked to Cathedral Lake near Aspen, CO. I had two objectives: climb Cathedral Peak (featured at center) and photograph sunrise from there, and photograph the Perseid Meteor Shower. Not easy to combine a night photography goal, climbing a mountain, and photographing sunrise in one day, but I managed to pull it off. I'll sleep when I'm dead. :-)

Despite the haze in the night sky from the California fires, this was the best Perseid shower I can remember shooting. There were huge streaks of light on a consistent basis. I was very pleased and just loved laying on my back next to the lake to watch the meteors rain down.

It was a fabulous night of star-gazing and meteor watching! It was VERY dark, so I processed it darkly.

Process:

Out of 413 exposures I shot over the course of several hours during the Perseid Meteor shower, I combined multiple (19) exposures to bring forward all of the meteors I was able to capture. I then combined this with my foreground shot which was exposed for much longer (but not as long as I wanted - I accidentally left my intervalometer at home and forgot to download the PlayMemories app on my phone, so I hand-held the button down, LOL).

Details:

Sony A7R2; Sony 12-24 f/4. 12mm, 30s, ISO 10,000 - 413 shots. Foreground - 12mm, 254s, ISO 3200
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