How best to photograph the Lyrid meteor shower

[Andy Resnick]

I'm hoping for some advice from those who know better. The Lyrid meteor shower is going to be best viewed here (North America) in the 'wee hours' of April 22 (call it 2 am). Since I'm not a vampire, I'd like to make a plan now in order to prevent making a stupid mistake due to being mostly asleep.

I'm not sure what the optimal lens to use is- I have a choice of three, ranging from moderate telephoto (85mm) to wide angle (24 mm), all about the same maximum f/#. To give a sense of the field of view, 85mm will just fit the entire constellation Orion in the frame, while 24mm will fit about 20% of the sky. I'm not sure how 'big' the meteor shower will be.

I'm also not sure what the best strategy is- longest possible exposure times (say minutes), or more moderate ones? Again, to give a sense of my reality, star trails become noticeable around 1-3s exposure (depending on the lens), and the background light pollution becomes objectionable (using ISO 100) at around 10s (full aperture) or 15 minutes (f/22).

Related to this, in terms of ISO/aperture balancing, should the lens should be stopped down some to minimize aberrations, forcing a higher ISO setting, or leave the lens wide open and use a lower ISO?

Or can I stop the lens down *and* use a low ISO setting because the meteors are so bright?

Thanks!

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

@Andy Resnick any new insights regarding this?

 

[Andy Resnick]

@Andy Resnick any new insights regarding this?

Wow... necro post! Other than "there should be clear skies" :), I can add some results from personal experience, for example a more general context of signal-to-background as a function of different focal length. Maybe roll this into the existing astrophotography guide?

 

[davenn]

I'm not sure what the optimal lens to use is- I have a choice of three, ranging from moderate telephoto (85mm) to wide angle (24 mm), all about the same maximum f/#. To give a sense of the field of view, 85mm will just fit the entire constellation Orion in the frame, while 24mm will fit about 20% of the sky. I'm not sure how 'big' the meteor shower will be.

24 - 50mm on a full frame camera or conversely 14 - 35mm on a crop sensor to get roughly the same FOV
I nearly always use a 50mm on my Canon 6D full frame DSLR

I'm also not sure what the best strategy is- longest possible exposure times (say minutes), or more moderate ones? Again, to give a sense of my reality, star trails become noticeable around 1-3s exposure (depending on the lens), and the background light pollution becomes objectionable (using ISO 100) at around 10s (full aperture) or 15 minutes (f/22).

For meteor showers, you really need to make the effort to get to darker skies, else you will miss 90% of them.
I can do 20-25 sec using a 24mm lens on the FF 6D. with an ISO of around 500 - 800 and fully open aperture
ie ... as open as the lens will do ... my 24 - 105 lens is f/4 across its range. The 14mm is f/2.8 ... gives a much
wider FOV but it's harder to see anything but the brightest meteors with such a wide FOV.
Anyway ...it's all academic, you can crop the image in post to remove any outer edge field aberrations.

If you are going to do multi minutes and untracked, then you don't care about the star trails, rather just
capturing as many as possible. ... and no don't do f/22 ... you are shutting out too much light

Related to this, in terms of ISO/aperture balancing, should the lens should be stopped down some to minimize aberrations, forcing a higher ISO setting, or leave the lens wide open and use a lower ISO?

If you are using a fast lens say f/1.8, you really don't need to stop it down any more than around one stop say f/2.8

I will repeat this again in bold letters

GET TO A DARK SITE ! you are pretty much wasting your time if you don't

Or can I stop the lens down *and* use a low ISO setting because the meteors are so bright?

no, no and no ... seriously, they won't look anywhere near as bright on camera as you see them with your eye
I have always be very surprised when I looked through my images to see how faint they looked compared to
how I saw them by eye ... many just didn't even show up on camera and I am thinking ... WTH ... I know
I should have captured those ones, they were in the camera FOV !Dave