photographing the meteor showers

[mudman]

what would be approximate settings for capturing the meteorite showers?
and time of night?

[ameerat42]

Have a look at this article, while it's still available.

Otherwise, search on "meteor showers southern hemishpere" or "...australia".

[mudman]

good article Am, i think the times mentioned kind of put this arthritic old fart off though

[ameerat42]

I hope Nardes sees this and can chip in but I reckon...

Meteor showers are usually fairly subtle phenomena. You might get lucky with a stationary shot of circa 30 sec,
after which time noticeable trailing of stars may occur.

I think that since you have to wait for the showers to happen, the shots should be tracked using a tracking mount.

Again, I hope Nardes can chime in on this.

[nardes]

I haven't attempted meteor showers before, but I suspect that dark skies, away from brightly lit cities and towns, would be the best so that any trails are more easily recorded.

I would probably use a tripod mounted wide angle lens, around 15-24mm, ISO 3200 to 6400, 10-20 sec exposures at F2.8 if possible and point it at the radiant of the meteor shower (the point from which they all appear to come from).

Manually focus on the brightest star, check focus at x10 regularly and make sure you have a lens hood and dew strap fitted on the lens to avoid dew forming on the front element of the lens.

However, if you can't meet all of the above conditions, it is still worth trying as best you can from where you are and with what gear you have, to add to your knowledge for when the next event happens.

Good luck.

Cheers

Dennis