Big and Little Dipper

There was a thin layer of clouds overhead and I live deep within the light-well that is Saint Louis. Around one last night, I stuck my head out and saw stars. The area on interest, around the North Pole was still obscured though. There are a lot of trees in that direction from my house. So, I hopped into the car and drove over to the old AB Green ball field. There were still thin clouds and a lot of light pollution, but there were no trees. I set up the tripod and camera and took a few trial photos. I had brought a chair, so I then just sat back and waited for the show to begin. “The only thing that would make this meteor shower better is actual meteors.” I didn’t see any, but I wasn’t certain why. It could have been too early yet. It could have been the observing conditions. When the time got closer to two, I started taking thirty second exposures, one right after the other. I was just hoping to get luck and catch a bright one. I never did see any meteors and after examining my photos, I didn’t catch any there either. I went to bed both tired and disappointed. In the morning I checked Twitter and found that my experience was pretty much the norm. This much trumpeted astronomical event was just another dud. One Twitter wag wrote, “If you look up at the sky, shake your head really fast, the stars kind of look like meteors.” I could have gone him one better. My wide field-of-view lens has an unusual telescoping arrangement. For widest field-of-view the barrel is fully extended. This is a quality Canon red-line lens, so it is heavy and mine is a little old too. When you point the lens up to look at the sky, the weight of the lens can cause the barrel to contract. You end up getting the following effect, which was what I was out there last night looking for.

Falling Stars