It's Perseid season again... that's a type of meteor shower for those who didn't go through a geeky astronomy phase. What's the best way to enjoy a meteor shower? Why with prolonged exposure and high speed film of course!

If you are going the old fashioned way, aka real film *gasp*, visual program coordinator for the American Meteor Association, Robert Lunsford, recommends using an SLR with 800 or 1,000 speed film and to lengthen your exposure to 10 minutes in dark areas.

But for the DSLR owners in the audience, it looks like the key is going to be a massive memory card. Set your camera to take exposures every ten seconds or so for as long as you have room, then use editing software to cleanup and stack the images.  A commenter on this photo.net discussion recommends DeepSkyStacker or Startrails.

Even Google is getting in on the action with a themed home page. I swear if it wasn't for the changing Google image, I would miss most holidays and happenings.

The peak of the shower was last night, but here in Massachusetts, we were inundated with thunderstorms and clouds all night. Lame. The shower should continue for a few more days, so I am hoping for better weather tonight. Looking out my window though, I am not very optimistic.

If you are able to snag any sweet meteor shots this week, let me know and I'll post them. Maybe we can have a makeshift meteor shot contest. Winner gets the satisfaction of pwning the competition.

Man, space rocks! 

(top photo by Halfblue from Wikimedia Commons)

(bottom photo from Startails.de)