Snowy Range Perseids

Gallery: LandscapePosted August 14, 2012743 views23 comments

Saturday night I went out to Snowy Range in Wyoming in search of dark skies for the Perseid meteor shower. I wanted something special for the foreground and I knew the Snowies faced in the perfect direction to get this shot. I started shooting at 10pm and didn't stop until 5 am, I had to change my battery every 2 hours which made for a long night. The moon rose around 1am to light up the mountain range.

This is a composite of 23 images, 22 for the meteors/stars and 1 taken at sunrise for the foreground which was lightly blended in. I also corrected the orientation of the meteors to account for the rotation of the earth (this took forever!)

I had a great night which was made even better because I spent it with my newly adopted dog Emmie, she was a trooper!

Comments

23 comments

Comment posted by Jimmy Gekas on August 14, 2012 at 11:56 AM

Crazy cool!

Registered on July 26, 2007, 244 Posts, 2807 Comments

Comment posted by Zack Clothier on August 14, 2012 at 12:52 PM

Saw this on Spaceweather, awesome shot David. Great job putting this together. I too witnessed the shower and caught some of these super bright meteors, what a show it was! One minor nit, the trees in the lower right hand corner look a bit milky, perhaps from the blending..

Registered on January 28, 2010, 343 Posts, 2257 Comments

Comment posted by Jack Garrett on August 14, 2012 at 1:15 PM

Just an awesome shot David!! I love how that one meteor has the bright burst in it. I'd love to capture something like this one day.

Registered on November 7, 2007, 41 Posts, 251 Comments

Comment posted by Kah Kit Yoong on August 14, 2012 at 2:02 PM

Very striking and well put together.

Registered on September 27, 2006, 636 Posts, 10682 Comments

Comment posted by Bill Chambers on August 14, 2012 at 2:34 PM

Overall a gorgeous shot! I love the way the meteors are coming out of the one area - well worth the time you spent on that, and I also love the colors of the streaks. My only nit is the rather bad distortion of the trees - did you try to fix that in PS? Don't know if you can fully repair that or not, but I imagine it can be substanially improved.

Registered on April 10, 2005, 753 Posts, 21216 Comments

Comment posted by Navin Sarma on August 14, 2012 at 3:01 PM

Wow. Incredible. The shower must have been a sight to see

Registered on July 17, 2011, 233 Posts, 1373 Comments

Comment posted by Gary McGhee on August 14, 2012 at 3:21 PM

Excellent work here David, the meteors look terrific.

Gary.

Registered on April 15, 2010, 142 Posts, 2416 Comments

Comment posted by Peter Coskun on August 14, 2012 at 4:26 PM

Magnificent. I wish I would have gone out to shoot this event, but I'm glad a few did and captured some brilliant images such as this one.

Registered on October 31, 2011, 170 Posts, 1240 Comments

Comment posted by Verdon on August 14, 2012 at 4:35 PM

Three thumbs up! Just checked you work on your www, EXCELLENT!

Registered on June 10, 2011, 147 Posts, 1444 Comments

Comment posted by Marco Crupi on August 14, 2012 at 4:42 PM

WOW! Amazing, we do have crazy busy skies above us...! Don't see many around light polluted cities. Great blend of numerous images.

Registered on April 22, 2012, 14 Posts, 69 Comments

Comment posted by Eva McDermott on August 14, 2012 at 8:40 PM

Spectacular image David. Looks like nature's fireworks.

Registered on January 4, 2009, 1015 Posts, 13229 Comments

Comment posted by Jaymes Dempsey on August 14, 2012 at 9:00 PM

Wow! Love that sky!

Registered on June 28, 2010, 47 Posts, 590 Comments

Comment posted by Mark Metternich on August 14, 2012 at 10:37 PM

Really cool image!!!!!!!

Registered on June 19, 2009, 276 Posts, 6240 Comments

Comment posted by Nancy Lea Sandy on August 14, 2012 at 10:52 PM

Great job.

Registered on January 24, 2011, 576 Posts, 6942 Comments

Comment posted by Ed Cordes on August 14, 2012 at 11:14 PM

Outstanding image. Your perseverance paid off. I really like the way your stars are points and the ridge rocks are lit up. I agree that if you could straighten the trees a bit it would help. We hardly ever see the Perseid's here due to overcast skies most of the time this time of the year.

Registered on November 1, 2003, 451 Posts, 3366 Comments

Comment posted by Tonia Graves on August 15, 2012 at 1:35 AM

Awesome stuff here David!

Registered on October 29, 2011, 92 Posts, 1035 Comments

Comment posted by Jared Atencio on August 15, 2012 at 1:46 AM

I've seen a few of these types of meteor shower images David, and looks like you caught quite the show! I really like the direction of the meteors and the comp has a nice balance of earth/sky. Two nits for me are the noise in the large, and some of the extremely dark areas (I know, it was night right ;) You may try some selective noise reduction or even some blurring techniques to smooth out the sky, but that may be a personal thing also. Kudos for the dedication to this and congrats on the new dog

Registered on June 23, 2009, 21 Posts, 422 Comments

Comment posted by Aaron Feinberg on August 15, 2012 at 4:12 AM

Holy balls that's cool. Bridge between photo art and landscape considering the amount of post necessary for this kind of stuff but that matters not. Great result. Killer

aF

Registered on October 26, 2009, 399 Posts, 2789 Comments

Comment posted by Rebecka on August 15, 2012 at 5:28 PM

O
M
G

Fabulous.

Registered on February 5, 2009, 170 Posts, 924 Comments

Comment posted by Morris McClung on August 16, 2012 at 9:05 PM

I knew this would do great over here, David. Just a killer shot.

Registered on May 7, 2007, 670 Posts, 19650 Comments

Comment posted by Tony Kuyper on August 17, 2012 at 9:23 AM

Very neat image. I think you've taken meteor photography to a new level.

Registered on November 1, 2003, 364 Posts, 22328 Comments

Comment posted by Stan Rose on August 17, 2012 at 6:56 PM

Two thumbs up!

Registered on September 15, 2005, 836 Posts, 17099 Comments

Comment posted by Alister Benn on August 17, 2012 at 7:12 PM

Totally wild... love everything abot this one...

Registered on June 9, 2011, 23 Posts, 258 Comments