Astronomical Events

Great Balls of Fire, Part 1: Using PhotoPills to Scout Meteor Showers

If you want to photograph meteor showers, 2020 is your year.

Why? Doesnโ€™t each calendar comprise the same meteor showers? Donโ€™t the Quadrantids happen every winter, and Eta Aquariids every spring, and the Delta Aquariids each summer and the Leonids each fall?

Yes, they do. But not every meteor-shower photography opportunity is created equal. The variable is a rather large obstacle in the night sky: the moon. The brighter it is, the fewer meteors we can see, and thus the fewer meteors we can photograph. In short, a new moon usually makes for a better experience when shooting shooting stars.

That brings us back to why 2020 is such a fine year for doing this: Of the nine major meteor showers, three will peak during a new moon, including the busiest shower of them all, the Geminids in December. The same conditions will be available for the Leonids in November, as well as the Lyrids โ€ฆ this week!

(The summer Perseids wonโ€™t be too shabby either. Theyโ€™ll happen under a 44.7 percent moon, but with a few hours before the waning gibbous rising, they should be spectacular nonetheless.)

This is why weโ€™re bringing you our three-part definitive guide to photographing meteor showers:

  1. โ€œUsing PhotoPills to Scout Meteor Showers,โ€ by Chris Nicholson

  2. โ€œHow to Photograph a Meteor Shower,โ€ by Matt Hill

  3. โ€œHow to Process a Meteor Shower Radiant,โ€ by Matt Hill

Moreover, all of this, plus a guide to gear and a guide to shoot locations, is contained in our brand new PDF e-guide, Great Balls of Fire: A Guide to Photographing Meteor Showers. To download the whole e-guide, click here:


Using PhotoPills to Scout Meteor Showers

Can you plan meteor shower photography without PhotoPills? Sure! But why would you, when the app makes planning a lot more convenient and a lot more precise?

The Meteor Showers feature is one of the newest in PhotoPills. It does an excellent job of collating the myriad and complex data points required to plan and execute a good meteor shower shoot:

  • dates of meteor showers and their peaks

  • the location of the shower radiant (where the meteors appear to originate in the sky)

  • the number of meteors per hour

  • the moon phase

Moreover, PhotoPills gives you all this information accurate to any position on earth, for any meteor shower until 2032. (If youโ€™re planning shoots further than that, kudos for your enthusiasm and confidence.)

To walk through the different settings and how to use them to plan a meteor shower shoot, weโ€™re going to pretend to go back in time.

On August 12, 2017, my fellow NPAN instructor Matt Hill, along with a group of our workshop attendees, hiked into Great Sand Dunes National Park with the goal of creating a night-long image stack of the Perseids streaking over the landscape. The photograph he created (Figure 1) was so on-point that itโ€™s become our go-to example of how to shoot meteors. (In fact, itโ€™s the image heโ€™ll use to demonstrate how to photograph and process a meteor shower image in the next two blog posts in this series.)

PhotoPills released their Meteor Showers feature just last fall. But we can look back in time (the appโ€™s pertinent data is retroactive to 2010) to see how he would have used PhotoPills to plan this shot.

Figure 1: Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado. Nikon D750 with a Zeiss Distagon 15mm f/2.8 lens. 17 images at 22 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 6400, plus a single foreground exposure at 382 seconds, ISO 2000 for the landscape after moonrise. ยฉ 2017 Matt Hill.

Working in PhotoPills

First things always come first: Open the app, then tap Meteor Showers (Figure 2). The pill opens and presents you with the data for any meteor shower activity today. Thatโ€™s fine if youโ€™re shooting tonight, but if youโ€™re scouting for a shoot in the future, you can navigate to any shower of any year over a two-decade period by tapping on Calendar (Figure 3).

You can select the year by tapping at the topโ€”in this case, to go back in time, I tap 2019 to move the timeline to the right, then I tap 2018 to move it again, and finally I tap 2017.

Figure 2.

Figure 3.

The view that comes up lists the nine major meteor showers along with lots of condensed information:

  • dates the showers are active

  • dates they peak

  • diagram of the constellation each shower appears to radiate from

  • the โ€œqualityโ€ of each shower for your shoot location (based on moonlight, position of the radiant, etc.)

  • number of meteors you can expect to see per hour

  • illumination percentage of the moon

For example, in Figure 4, for the 2017 Perseids we can see the following: It radiated from Perseus, had a below-average quality, lasted from July 17 to August 24, peaked on August 12 (the night Matt was shootingโ€”yay, Matt!), had an expected density of 33.8 meteors per hour, and was happening under a 70.2 percent moon.

Figure 4.

The next step is to dive deeper into the data by tapping โ€œPerseidsโ€ (Figure 5). There you can see all the info above, plus some more, such as the fact that the meteors originated from the Swift-Tuttle comet.

Figure 5.

When you tap the arrow next to โ€œPeak at your location,โ€ youโ€™ll open the Info screen, where youโ€™ll see a host of other information that will affect how and when you choose to shoot, such as the times for sunset, moonset, and visibility and orientation of the galactic core.

Perhaps upon seeing this information youโ€™re curious if the nights before or after would be better for the shoot. At the top (Figure 6), tapping < and > brings you backward and forward one day at a time, and all the pertinent data changes. To change by minutes or hours, swipe inside the box between those arrows.

Figure 6.

However, thereโ€™s one problem with all the info youโ€™ve seen in these screen shots so far. Itโ€™s not for Great Sand Dunes National Park. Rather, itโ€™s information for shooting in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Iโ€™m sitting as I write this blog post. That doesnโ€™t do me much good for planning a shot 2,200 miles away in southern Colorado.

Fortunately, thereโ€™s a way to change that:

  1. Tap Settings at the top right, then tap on the GPS coordinates (which, by default, should indicate your precise spot on the globe at the moment you tap).

  2. From there you can enter the coordinates of your shoot location (if you know them), or enter the name or address of the location in the search field at the top. (If you canโ€™t enter text, disable the Autoupdate switch in that dialog.)

  3. Select the correct option displayed below the search box (Figure 7).

  4. Tap Done (on an iOS device) or the back-arrow (on an Android).

Figure 7.

Now all the data will reflect the chosen shoot location rather than your current position.

So, time-traveling with Matt we can now see (Figure 8) that:

  • The sun will set at 7:58 p.m.

  • The moon will rise at 11:03 p.m.

  • The galactic core will be visible from 9:37 p.m. to 1:42 a.m..

  • The shower will peak at 11:04 p.m. with 36.9 meteors per hour.

  • At that time, he can expect to actually see 7.5 of those meteors per hour.

  • The shower will be radiating from an azimuth of 31.6 degrees and an elevation of 21.7 degrees.

  • Minor remainders from other meteor showers (e.g., the Delta Aquarids, which are past peak) might show up.

Figure 8.

Also on the Info screen is a graph with a horizontal line and two curves that dip above and below (Figure 9). The horizontal line indicates the horizon, the blue curve indicates the moon and the gray curve indicates the meteor shower radiant. The curves indicate how far above or below the horizon the moon and radiant will be at any given time (indicated at the bottom of the graph). The background of the graph is gray, with darker gray indicating twilight and black indicating dark hours. For ideal shooting conditions, look for a time during darkness when the moon is below the horizon and the radiant above.

Figure 9.

At the bottom of the graph is a gray bar chart that combines the data about light conditions (moon and sun visibility) with the expected rate of meteors (Figure 10). This identifies the times when youโ€™re most likely to see the most shooting stars. Itโ€™s essentially a curve indicating how good the show will be at different times of nightโ€”the higher the gray, the better. In Mattโ€™s case, we can see that the best window to photograph the most meteors in the darkest conditions was between 9:30 and 11 p.m.

Figure 10.

Swiping the graph will change the time of day, and in the section below you can see how the radiantโ€™s azimuth and elevation change, as well as the expected rate of visible meteors.

Putting the Data to Use

All of that data sounds wonderful, right? Well โ€ฆ you can be forgiven if youโ€™re thinking, โ€œYeah, but thatโ€™s a lot of numbers to sort through.โ€ Youโ€™re right. And, in fact, there are even more numbers and technical names for them that I didnโ€™t even mention.

So why is PhotoPills so great for planning a meteor shower shoot? Because it will instantly turn all those numbers into intuitive visual aids, either right on the scene in front of you, for scouting in the field, or right on a map, for scouting at home.

Scouting in the Field

For pretty much every PhotoPills feature I employ, the most powerful tool within that feature is Augmented Reality (AR), which uses your deviceโ€™s camera to project a map of celestial events right onto the scene in front of you. This allows you to stand in the spot you want to shoot at night and see exactly, for example, where the moon will rise on the horizon, where the Milky Way will tilt across the landscape, and yes, where stars will shoot out of the sky.

During the end of the day, when Matt could still see where he was walking and setting up the camera, he would have used PhotoPills to see exactly where the radiant of Perseids would be at the time he wanted to shoot (Figure 11).

Using that visual information on your deviceโ€™s display is invaluable for deciding where to set up your tripod, where to point your camera, what lens to use, and how to compose your photograph. In the figure, you can see that the Perseids radiant would rise above the horizon at about 9:30 p.m. and track in an arc above the distant mountains. You can also see that the radiant is aligning nicely with the Milky Wayโ€”so, bonus!

Figure 11.

Doing this is easy. From the Meteor Showers Info screen, tap AR at the bottom (Figure 12). This will engage your deviceโ€™s camera. PhotoPills uses the deviceโ€™s location and compass information to know where youโ€™re pointing, and will lay the sky map right on top of what youโ€™re looking at. In this case, part of what it shows you will be the meteor shower.

Figure 12.

When you open the AR view, it will default to the current date and time. To see what will happen later, just drag your finger on the screen. Youโ€™ll see the sky map move across the scene as you go forward and back by minutes and hours. If you want to go forward a full day, just tap the right of the screen; to go back a day, tap on the left.

As you turn and move your device around the scene, watch the display. Look for the heavy line that indicates the path of the radiant through the sky, with points along the line indicating the time the radiant will appear in different places. Also look for the icon with the meteor showerโ€™s name. This icon will tell you precisely where the radiant will be at the time indicated at the top left of the AR screen.

Back in 2017, all Matt would have needed to do was find the Perseids on the sky map, drag the icon to where he wanted to see the radiant in his composition, note what time it would be there (a little before 11 p.m., in Figure 11) and how it would move through the scene, then set up and shoot.

Scouting from Home

Planning a shot when youโ€™re on location looks easy enough, right? But what if you want to plan ahead of time, when youโ€™re still at home day-dreaming about night-shooting a meteor shower?

Thatโ€™s when you want to work in the PhotoPills mapโ€”or in, as they call it, the Planner pill.

To open this feature, start at the main screen and tap on the very first option, which is labeled Planner (Figure 13).

Figure 13.

Locate and tap on the Settings button (Figure 14). Here you can enable and disable different layers of information, including for the sun, twilight, Milky Way and so on. For this example, Iโ€™ve turned off everything except the Moon and Meteor Shower layers. To return to the map, tap Done (iOS) or the back-arrow (Android).

Figure 14.

To make your map show your desired shoot location, tap Load at the bottom, then enter your spot in the text box (in this case, Great Sand Dunes, Figure 15). Tap on the location name in the search results, and PhotoPills will bring you there on the map. Now you can pinch, zoom, drag and swipe to get to the exact spots youโ€™d like to scout. Press and hold where youโ€™d like to stand for your photo, and PhotoPills will drop a red pin. That pin will then become the center point for all your moon and meteor data.

Figure 15.

In Figure 16, you can see all that information in graphic form. The teal and purple lines show where the moon will rise and set, respectively. The straight gray line shows the meteor showerโ€™s radiant position at the chosen time. The gray, curved, dotted line shows how the radiant will move throughout the night in relative position to the ground.

Figure 16.

In order to save that work for future reference (including once you finally get into the field to shoot):

  1. Tap Save at the bottom.

  2. Tap Plan.

  3. Tap New Plan.

  4. Type a name for your plan.

  5. Tap Enter.

Now you can call up that plan by name whenever youโ€™d like to reference itโ€”such as when you find a time machine to return to good olโ€™ 2017.

Executing the Shoot

Thatโ€™s how we can use PhotoPills to plan a meteor shower shoot. Tomorrow, Matt will discuss how he executed the rest! And then afterward, heโ€™ll show how he process it. Stay tuned. โ€ฆ

Now move on to โ€œPart 2: How to Photograph a Meteor Shower.โ€ And be sure to download the e-book, Great Balls of Fire: A Guide to Photographing Meteor Showers.

Chris Nicholson is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night, and author of Photographing National Parks (Sidelight Books, 2015). Learn more about national parks as photography destinations, subscribe to Chris' free e-newsletter, and more at www.PhotographingNationalParks.com.

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Moon Shots: What We Learned from Photographing the 2019 Lunar Eclipse

While lunar eclipses arenโ€™t as jaw-droopingly exciting as total solar eclipses, they are still an amazing thing to witness, as well as to capture as photographs. And a lunar eclipse comes with a big benefit: totality lasts much longer than during a solar eclipse, so you have more time to get creative as well as not stress out!

I had last shot a lunar eclipse in 2014, which was a very special time. That blood moon was the second of a tetrad, a series of four consecutive total eclipses that occurred in approximately six-month intervals. The next time that will happen will be in 2032-33. I wonder how we will capture it then! Technology made a major leap from 2014 to 2019, so who knows how it will leap in another 13 years. Maybe we will be able to witness those lunar eclipses from the moon!

The next lunar eclipse will occur in two years, on May 26, 2021. In the meantime, we wanted to share a few tips that we learned this year to help you better prepare not only for the next eclipse but for shooting the moon in general.

And by โ€œwe,โ€ I mean a few more people than usual. First Iโ€™ll talk about my experience shooting the eclipse this week, and then Matt will add some thoughts from his experience. Finally, we have invited six of our National Parks at Night workshop alums to share their images and lessons learned.

Onward โ€ฆ to the moon and beyond โ€ฆ

11 Tips and Tricks from the 2019 Lunar Eclipse

1. Do your research.

Understand the location you will be in to capture the moon. Will you be in an urban or rural environment? How can this location help tell your story? I saw lots of wonderful lunar eclipse phases placed over breathtaking landscapes, buildings, etc. You could do the same in an urban location.

For this yearโ€™s lunar eclipse, I was in Atlanta, a city I wasnโ€™t that familiar with and had little time to scout. I was inspired by the skyline I saw while driving into the city, and I noted that there were plenty of overpasses that could provide a good vantage point.

2. Ascertain the elevation of the eclipse.

The 2019 super blood wolf moon (aka the lunar eclipse) over Atlanta. Foreground: 35mm lens, 25 seconds, f/16, ISO 200; background (moon): 600mm lens, 1/2 second, f/5.6, ISO 3200.

You want to foresee what foreground you can include in a single shot. I was really taken aback by how high in the sky this lunar eclipse was. It was very difficult to introduce foreground into the scene unless you were really far away or made a composite.

In hindsight, I could have gotten under the Skyview Atlanta Ferris Wheel downtown and probably made a pretty cool shotโ€”but my last photo of a lunar eclipse (in 2014) included a Ferris wheel and I didnโ€™t want to be known as that guy! This did make me realize that figuring out the problemโ€”i.e., the height of the moon in the skyโ€”can lead to unusual solutions like actually getting under your foreground to get the shot!

3. Go with two rigs.

The lunar eclipse lasts approximately 4 to 5 hours. Give yourself more options to create! It could be wide and telephoto rigs, or short-exposure and long-exposure setups.

4. Be ready for that close-up!

That big olโ€™ blood moon, 2019.

This is advice for shooting the moon any time of the year: Use a telephoto lens. The more you can fill your frame, the better. Higher-resolution cameras will also allow us to crop into the image more with minimal loss in detail.

This year I used a 100-400mm lens, which when zoomed in all the way was the equivalent of a 600mm with my APS-C sensor. I still cropped into the moon in post and would have preferred an effective focal length of 800mm to 1000mm in the field. While those lenses might seem expensive and out of reach, consider using crop-sensor cameras with 200-500mm or 150-600mm lenses. Also, you could adapt a telescope to fit your camera and can easily get to 1000mm.

When using a super-telephoto lens and aiming it high in the sky, watch out for lens creep, which is when your lens zooms slightly during the exposure. I once found this to be the culprit of a soft image, when my Fujifilm 100-400mm lens wouldnโ€™t lock down at one focal length. Eventually it stayed put, but the problem was a bit frustrating and ruined several of my shots. Always zoom in and review your images.

 5. Donโ€™t forget your wide lens.

Telephoto lenses get most of the love during the eclipses, but wide-angle lenses can offer better storytelling. They can tell something else about where the image was shotโ€”just think about what other elements of the scene you want to combine with the moon. Two rigs gives you that option.

6. Allow plenty of time to play.

We mentioned that the lunar eclipse lasts a while. The totality, or umbra period, can last 1 to 2 hours. Thatโ€™s a lot of blood moon! While the umbra phase can be the most exciting, start clicking as soon as the penumbra starts, when the moon remains white but starts to show all its phases as Earth casts its shadow.

7. Try a moon trail!

High Roller & Lunar Moon Trail, 2014. 55mm focal length, 15 minutes f/8, ISO 400.

With so much time, why not set up one rig dedicated to shooting the entire eclipse and then stack it together for a very unique moon trail? The beam will be wide and bright during the penumbra period but get skinnier and a little dimmer during the umbra period. Iโ€™ve seen only a few images using this technique, and I definitely want to give it a go next time!

Given the length of this long exposure, youโ€™ll definitely want to make sure you have plenty of power in your camera. Iโ€™d at least want to add a second battery and attach a power gripโ€”but for even more power and reliability Iโ€™d hook up the camera to a Tether Tools Case Relay or ONsite power solution.

8. Do a time lapse or capture some video.

Iโ€™m a still photographer, but moving images can help tell a story in more detail. This could be especially helpful if you are battling clouds or weather. Dedicate that second rig to video and keep that powered up with the Tether Tools solutions listed above.

9. Zoom while exposing.

I slapped my hand against my head when I saw these images pop up on social media. I love this technique for neon signs and buildings but it didnโ€™t cross my mind with the moon! Especially during the dimmer umbra phase, you can get exposures of 3 to 8 seconds. Use a telephoto lens zoomed all the way in, then midway into the exposure zoom to the widest end and leave it there. Two moons for the price of one!

10. Include the moon with other night elements.

Match up that moon with car trails or other bright things that move. We often default to the telephoto close-up of the moon, but how else can we tell the night story? Emphasize movement in your image! In my image from Atlanta, I really wanted car trails and the lunar eclipseโ€”I wanted those leading lines taking us to the moon! Perhaps you could shoot the moon next to moving water, or add star trails surrounding the moon.

11. Composite away!

Full moon and eclipse photography are techniques that totally lend themselves to creative and fantastic composites. Show us all the phases of the eclipse in an interesting pattern. Place the moon anywhere in the world! Compositing imagesโ€”taking elements from multiple shots and combining themโ€”can totally unleash a new fantasy location.

My advice on compositing is to have a clear vision and stay true to it. Larger-than-life moons make a viewer realize the moon โ€œdoesnโ€™t belongโ€ in the scene, however if the rest of the image is pure fantasy then it is totally acceptable. In my image from this week, the moon is bigger than it normally would have been but still has a somewhat realistic feel.


Photographer vs. Freezing Temps

by Matt Hill

The night of the lunar eclipse, it was frigid in Catskill, New York. I mean cold. 3 degrees F cold. (Interpret the โ€œFโ€ how you want.)

Also, I was feeling really under the weather. But I really wanted to grab some frames of the eclipse, despite all these roadblocks.

So I popped open PhotoPills and saw that the super blood wolf moon would be arcing right between the houses by my studio. I decided to shoot it from the tiny deck outside the studio door.

The Weather Underground app (left) and PhotoPillsโ€™ eclipse and Night AR features provided all the info needed about where and when to shoot the eclipse in Catskill, New York.

For about 2.5 hours, I popped in and out, trying to avoid frostbite, and I worked through an image sequence that got me fully into totality.

And then, for kicks, I ran through optimizing exposure length versus ISO during totality. I mean, it was an hour long, right? The worst thing I could get was frostbite.

I settled on shooting at 1/2 second and ISO 100. I liked it better than any of the images I shot at higher ISOs. I made this sequence of images from the set:

Nikon Z 6, Nikon 300mm f/2.8 lens. 1/125, f/14, ISO 100 (full moon); 1/2 second, f/4.5, ISO 100 (totality).

Then I thought it would be great to run one more experiment to see at what shutter speed a 300mm lens would make the moon too blurry to be seen clearly. Itโ€™s easy to do with a full moonโ€”but I wanted to have this to show people what it looks like during an eclipse:

Honestly, I thought the 1/2 second exposure was the sharpest that was acceptable to me. Either way, note that the chart above is for a 300mm lens. Results will be even more restrictive with a longer lens, such as a 600mm. Itโ€™s important to bracket and test in the field.

Exhausted and tired, I put my gear inside and rolled into bed around 1 a.m.โ€”after downloading and inspecting my images, naturally. ;-)


Eclipse Stories from NPAN Alums

For several days this week we saw some of our workshop alumni post incredible images on social media. We asked a few if theyโ€™d share their stories and lessons learned, and we were thrilled that they are happy to do so.

 

by Gary Domrow

ยฉ 2019 Gary Domrow, instagram.com/gsdpic. Canon 5D Mark IV, Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 lens with teleconverters. 1/2 second, f/8, ISO 1600.

I set up the tripod up in my driveway here in Austin, Texas. I had hoped to do a sequence but the first part of the eclipse was obscured by clouds, so I took pictures for just about 15 minutes on either side of the beginning of totality. I shot them using the Canon 100-400mm, some with the Sigma 2X teleconverter and some with the Canon 1.4X, set up on a Really Right Stuff tripod and ball head. I used the โ€œlive view and zoom inโ€ method to focus, and actually remembered to try a few different settings for ISO, shutter speed and aperture.

Despite using that lens and teleconverter combination, I must not have been zoomed in quite all the way because the focal length is 525mm according to the EXIF data. So I cropped the final image. What you see is maybe 30 or 40 percent of the original frame. Finally, I did some minor tweaking in post with Lightroomโ€”Exposure, Contrast, Noise, Clarity.

I guess I canโ€™t say I learned anything new. I just practiced and reinforced the techniques that I have, which is also a good thing.

Well, I did learn later that some people are really luckyโ€”did you see this article about the meteor hitting the moon during the eclipse? I guess as long as you are out shooting the night sky, thereโ€™s always a chance youโ€™ll catch something unique or interesting or unexpected.

 

by Heather Cunningham Wendelboe

ยฉ 2019 Heather Cunningham Wendelboe, bolo-photo.com. Nikon D750, 20mm f/1.8 lens.

Iโ€™ll pretty much always have a story, because every time I go out on one of my โ€œautomotive astroscape shoots,โ€ I set myself up for a major mistakeโ€”since I always want to try something I donโ€™t know how to do! So hereโ€™s the whole story of my disaster.

I had planned for one my usual automotive astroscape shoots. My intention for my final image is always to share a vision as if you had looked out a window and watched the whole experience through the nightโ€”to inspire someone to go on a late-night road trip out there in the middle of nowhere. A secondary intention is to showcase my passion for driving these cars the way they were meant to be driven and not just hoarding them in a garage.

This was my first attempt at a lunar eclipse. I wasnโ€™t thinking about what would be different than other night photos Iโ€™ve done, so I composed like I normally would. The focus and exposures actually turned out pretty good, considering the haze in the sky and the lens fogging up, not to mention the microscopic size of the moon with a 20mm lens! The main problem was that at the time I started shooting the moon, it was in the middle of my frame, and there was not enough room at the top of the frame to fit the entire sequence of exposures as planned. So, right about the time of maximum totality, the moon just dropped off the edge of the composition!

I wish I had set up the camera to shoot the entire sequence of the eclipse, and then I could have done a second setup for the composition and foreground exposure, since the final image would have to be a composite anyway.

When it came to editing, I cropped out about two-thirds of my frame to make it a vertical, which helped get rid of a lot of the vertical line distortion and placed the moons in a better position from side to side. But with the vertical orientation, looking from top to bottom, I ended up with literally the middle third of my frame being blank sky. I posted that version to the National Parks at Night Alumni Facebook group. After talking with several people in the comments about all our lunar eclipse photos, I decided to try a re-edit: I moved the moon sequence lower to fill the blank sky, then I cropped it back to horizontal.

Moving the moons to an inaccurate position in the sky bothers me, because no one who could have been there watching that scene would have seen it this way. But the resulting composition is acceptable.

Lesson learned: You canโ€™t recover what you didnโ€™t shoot. And if you mess up what you did shoot, you owe it to yourself to salvage it, because your failed attempt required the same effort that a successful one would have. It wasnโ€™t your work, only your decisions, that made the difference.

 

by Randy Christ

ยฉ 2019 Randy Christ, MovingImagesPhotography.com. Canon 5D Mark IV, Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 with 1.4X teleconverter, on an iOptron SkyGuider Pro EQ Camera Mount. 20 seconds, f/8, ISO 100.

The photograph is a single imageโ€”no HDR, no compositing, no Photoshop. All the editing, cropping, etc. was done with Lightroom.

Image stabilization was turned off, and focus was set to manual. The camera was mounted on an iOptron SkyGuider Pro EQ mount, which was configured to track the moon precisely. The 20-second exposure time was chosen to hold in check the star trails that would occur due to the moon and stars moving at different rates in different directions. Also, this shutter speed allowed for the settings of ISO 100 and f/8, which are the sweet spots of this camera and lens.

This was my first attempt at shooting with an EQ mount, and the comedy of errors I made kept rolling all evening. Talk about lessons learnedโ€”as well as just some bad luck. But I also had some good luck, and came away with some shots I am pretty happy with.

I decided to process this particular image in the series because it caught the fleeting moment when the moon was just about to leave the umbra shadow of Earth, ending totality. During totality, the light that reaches the moon travels through the inner layers of Earthโ€™s atmosphere, which passes along the longer-wavelength orange and red light. This is why the moon turns orange during totality. In the moments just prior to reaching the end of totality, some light reaches the moon after having passed through Earthโ€™s ozone layer, which passes along blue, shorter-wavelength light. This results in a small strip of purple trim on the leading edge of the moon. It is a unique and splendid moment that occurs for only a brief moment in time.

Note: If youโ€™d like to read more about how Randy created this image, see his blog post โ€œTotal Lunacyโ€”Photographing the Total Lunar Eclipse.โ€

 

by Martha Hale

ยฉ 2019 Martha Hale, instagram.com/marthahale. Canon 5D Mark IV, Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens.

I was fortunate enough to shoot the solar eclipse of 2017 with National Parks at Night, so I knew I wanted to give this lunar shot a foreground element. Using PhotoPills, I scouted numerous skyline and landscape possibilities around town, only to realize this event was going to be happening straight up in the sky far away from the horizon. Change of plans. I scouted taller locations such as the statue of Vulcan in Birmingham, but newly installed multicolor LED lighting was going to be a challenge. I pondered Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark, but without NPAN, would they let me in that late again and turn off all the lights? Slim chance.

At the entrance to my neighborhood is a rather large replica of the Statue of Liberty. I couldnโ€™t resist. I ended up liking a composition from directly beneath the statue with my lens aimed straight up, shooting with a Canon 5D Mark IV and a 70-200mm lens. I bounced all night between that and a Fuji X-T3 setup with a 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 lens plus 2X extender. I was struggling with the loss of stops at f/9 with the Fuji, and with chasing the moon to keep it in the frame (should have used my star tracker from the previous eclipse), and with having to bump up the ISO so much once we were in totality.

I was getting frustrated, so when my husband came to check on me, I was ready to pack it up. But first I handed him a flashlight and asked him to point it at the face of the statue. I went back to my Canon and decided to do one final composition with my focal point on the statue, and just to be sure, took the time to do one more shot focusing specifically on the moon. Iโ€™m so glad I took that extra step, because when I got back to the full screen of my computer, the moon was slightly out of focus in all the earlier shots! I stacked the two shots in Photoshop for the win!

 

by Susan Wales

ยฉ 2019 Susan Wales, susanwales.ca. Nikon D810, Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 lens.

I did not do a time lapse, but rather only took individual frames and put them together in Photoshop later. It would have been hard to do a time lapse because the settings changed a lot from the beginning to the end of the eclipse.

I did not realize that the color of the moon would change so dramatically from white at the start until the blood moon color developed with the full eclipse. That was fascinating to watch.

I pre-focused to infinity, locked my focus down and then shot in manual mode. I started to photograph at 8:50 p.m. (in British Columbia) and finished at 10:09 p.m. when the clouds moved in. I started with an exposure of 1/6 second, f/5.6, ISO 64 and finished at the height of the eclipse at 1.3 seconds, f/5.6, ISO 2000. I adjusted my camera settings manually as the light changed on the moon. 

 

by Steve Winker

ยฉ 2019 Steve Winker, whereswinker.com. Canon 6D, Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 lens.

๏ปฟI shot the eclipse from the RV Park Iโ€™m staying at in Tucson, Arizona. Unfortunately, my site is right next to a 40-foot wall separating the RV park from Interstate 10. So there wasnโ€™t any decent foreground. Plus, thereโ€™s a very tall bank of lights right there.

The main thing I learned was that I shouldnโ€™t have set up so close to a very strong light source high in the air. At totality, it was almost impossible to see the moon thru the haze created by the light. The strong haze also caused my photos of the moon at totality to be a little hazy.

I really didnโ€™t learn too much else this time. But I had shot a lunar eclipse in 2014 and I applied what I had learned from that shoot to this one. Based on that shoot and the fact that I didnโ€™t have a foreground to use, I made the decision to zoom in and make a composite using several stages of the eclipse.

I did no cropping. I just took the five frames into Photoshop as layers, masked out the sky in each layer, and then moved the five layers so that the moons lined up.


Wrapping Up

Thank you to those six fantastic alums for sharing their images and their stories! Weโ€™re continually inspired by the photography we see coming from the fine folks we get to work with throughout the year.

So, whoโ€™s next? How about you? Weโ€™d love to see your photos of this weekโ€™s lunar eclipse, and to hear the stories behind them and the lessons you may have learned. Please feel free to share them in the comments section below or on our Facebook page.

Gabriel Biderman is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He is a Brooklyn-based fine art and travel photographer, and author of Night Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots (Peachpit, 2014). During the daytime hours you'll often find Gabe at one of many photo events around the world working for B&H Photoโ€™s road marketing team. See his portfolio and workshop lineup at www.ruinism.com.

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The Iceball Cometh: Getting Ready for Comet Wirtanen with Astronomer Tyler Nordgren

This month, Earth is receiving a very special visitor: Comet 46P/Wirtanen will adorn our night skies for all of December, ready for people to gaze at (likely with naked eyes) and to photograph.

Interested? Then you should get readyโ€”as in, now. The comet will make its closest approach to Earth on December 16, but the best time to view and photograph it may be as early as this coming week.

To get the scoop on what we can expect, I chatted with our favorite astronomer, Tyler Nordgren, author of Stars Above, Earth Below: A Guide to Astronomy in the National Parks. Heโ€™s also the artist behind the popular โ€œHalf the Park is After Darkโ€ national park posters. (Check out his website, tylernordgren.com, for more info on everything he does.)

If youโ€™ve been reading this blog for a while, you may remember Tyler from one of our very first posts. Weโ€™re also thrilled that heโ€™ll be joining us and Atlas Obscura to co-lead our trip โ€œDeath Valley After Dark: Astronomy and Photography in the Backcountry,โ€ which begins in just a few days. (While there, we should get great views of the comet. Stay tuned to our Instagram feed!)

Below, Tyler talks about Comet Wirtanenโ€”everything from where and how to find it, to where and how to photograph it, and more.


Chris: Why does this comet have astronomers excited?

Tyler: Comets are one of those amazing phenomena where every single time one of them shows up in the sky, itโ€™s always different.

Throughout human history, the sky has always been something that was thought to be eternal and unchanging. The stars always had the same constellations and those constellations came back each year at the exact same time. But comets would show up out of the blueโ€”or out of the blacknessโ€”and when they did, you could see these great big tails sweeping across the sky, sometimes from horizon to horizon.

So every time one of these comes along, you never know exactly what youโ€™re going to see. You get one with naked-eye visibility maybe once every decade. I definitely know itโ€™s been about a decade since the last one I saw with my naked eye, so Iโ€™m really excited about this. And if it gets more people curious and going outside, looking at the stars, and getting out to dark locations, then all the better.

You can see photos that have been made of 46P/Wirtanen so farโ€”mostly in the Southern Hemisphereโ€”by clicking on these gallery screen shots of Flickr (above) and Spaceweather.com (right).

You can see photos that have been made of 46P/Wirtanen so farโ€”mostly in the Southern Hemisphereโ€”by clicking on these gallery screen shots of Flickr (above) and Spaceweather.com (right).

Chris: A lot of times in the past weโ€™ve heard thereโ€™s going to be a comet and then something happens to itโ€”like it breaks up on the other side of the sunโ€”and we never see anything. Is Wirtanen pretty much a guarantee?

Tyler: Thereโ€™s this quote: โ€œComets are like cats; they both have tails and they do exactly whatever they want.โ€ So yeah, there have been loads of comets that have been announced to the public that in the end werenโ€™t visible at all.

But this one weโ€™ll see. In fact, people are already photographing it. Itโ€™s been visible in the skies of the Southern Hemisphere already, and thatโ€™s only the beginning of the show. As it moves closer to both the sun and Earth, and as it gets brighter and bigger, it will be moving into the skies of the Northern Hemisphere.

This is something that will be coming into view for those of us in the continental United States over the next two weeks, and if you are lucky enough to be within driving distance of some really dark skies, you should be able to set up a camera and capture this thing. Itโ€™s going to be bright enough and big enough.

Chris: This should be pretty exciting for photographers. This is not a common thing that we get to shoot.

Tyler: Right! In fact, my first attempt at astrophotography was in 1997 when Comet Hale-Bopp came along. That was the perfect comet because it was naked-eye visible for almost a year. You could see it from New York City. Especially back in the day when everyone was shooting on film and you needed time to develop it, look at the prints and then go out and try it again, you had a lot of opportunity to really hone the shot. Thatโ€™s actually when I first got my interest in night sky photography.

NASA offers a fun breakdown of what happens to a comet as it approaches the sun, enabling us to see it from Earth.

Chris: What will Wirtanen look like?

Tyler: Comets are balls of dirt and ice. They have very elliptical orbits, so they come close to the sun and then go far away. When they come close, their ice turns into gas, and the dust and the dirt thatโ€™s mixed in with it gets ejected, and you wind up with these great big glowing tails that point away from the sun.

Well, hereโ€™s the problem with this comet. Its elliptical orbit at its furthest goes almost out to Jupiter, and at its closest it comes barely outside the orbit of Earth. We are going to be closest to Wirtanen when itโ€™s at its closest to the sun. So what youโ€™re going to have is the sun, Earth and this comet all lined up. The comet is going to be at oppositionโ€”itโ€™s on the opposite side of the sky from the sun.

What this all means is that its tail will be pointed almost directly away from Earth, so the comet probably will look like a great big fuzzy ball. Thatโ€™s pretty neat, but itโ€™s not what we think of as these giant swooping tails that arch across the sky over 40, 50, 60 degrees. It will be a big fuzz ball, but one thatโ€™s two to three times the size of the moon, so thatโ€™s pretty darn neat in my opinion.

Chris: Where exactly on earth will the comet be visible from?

Tyler: Itโ€™s really moving and brightening at just the right rate, in just the right direction, so that pretty much everybody on earth will have a great shot at this thing.

Chris: Where should a photographer look in the sky to find it?

Tyler: Itโ€™s going to start off early next week in the constellation of Eridanus. As you see Orion rising in the east, lying on its side, the comet will be rising before it. At around midnight, looking south, it will be just off to the right of Orion toward the west of the constellation, and it will be moving northward and passing by Taurus. It will be going to The Pleiades, and eventually around Christmas it will be visible through the constellation of Auriga.

Courtesy of a NASA widget, a view of Wirtanenโ€™s route on its 2019 visit near Earth.

Chris: How dark does the sky need to be to see and shoot Wirtanen? Will we be able to view this from the suburbs, or do we need to get out into the hinterlands?        

Tyler: Youโ€™re going to want to get out into the hinterlands. Currently Iโ€™m seeing the comet as maybe around 4th magnitude or 5th magnitude, and itโ€™s predicted to get to 3rd magnitude.

For those who may not be familiar with the magnitude scale, the smaller the number, the brighter the object is to the human eye. In a dark sky location, a pristine location, we can see stars as faint as 6th magnitude. So for this comet getting to 3rd magnitude, thatโ€™s like Polaris. That should be easily really bright.

The problem is, it wonโ€™t be a point of light. All that light, all that brightness, will be spread out over an area a little larger than a full moon, and up to three times larger. So itโ€™s like taking a 3rd magnitude star and smearing it out over this large space.

For that reason, if youโ€™re someplace with light pollution, the comet will probably appear too faint. So you really want to get out to as dark of a location as you can, so that that background sky is as dark as possible.

If you want to determine the best dark-sky areas near you, check out DarkSkyFinder.com, which maps dark sky areas around the globe.

If you want to determine the best dark-sky areas near you, check out DarkSkyFinder.com, which maps dark sky areas around the globe.

Chris: How will the moon cycle affect the best time to see the comet?

Tyler: Next week is going to be new moon, and thatโ€™s when you have your darkest skies, your darkest background. But after that, the moon starts to come into the sky. By the time the comet is at its closest to us, about December 16, the moon will be brightening up the sky and probably making the comet harder to see with your naked eye. But at that point you should probably still be able to pick it out with the camera.

Chris: In terms of exposure, will this be like photographing a dim section of the Milky Way?

Tyler: Exactly. Your camera will pick up more light than your eyes will. As an astronomerโ€”especially when it comes to comets, I donโ€™t want to say anything definitivelyโ€”but I feel like I can honestly say that there should be no doubt your camera will be able to capture this.

Comet 46P/Wirtanen, courtesy of Knight Observatory, Tomar, Portugal.

Chris: Should photographers just use whatever exposure they would for a general star photo?

Tyler: Yes. The cometโ€”unlike stars or galaxiesโ€”is moving against those background stars. So from night to night itโ€™s actually moving from the south toward the north, which means as itโ€™s rising from the east, it will be moving from southeast to eventually northeast. By the time we get to the end of the month, the comet will have moved so far north that it will have become whatโ€™s called circumpolar, which means it will never actually set behind the horizon over the course of the night.

So it will be moving around quite a bit, but for the next week or so it will be slow enough that in a typical exposure that you would use to capture stars or the Milky Way, the comet probably would not appear to move relative to the stars.

Now, I have seen predictions that say by the time it gets to be the closest to usโ€”so, around December 16โ€”it will be moving fast enough so that while looking at it maybe through a pair of binoculars or a telescope, you might actually be able to pick out its motion against the stars with your own eye. So at that point you should be aware of the fact that during a long exposure the comet might show some movement in a long exposure, and you may have to compensate for that.

Chris: Because itโ€™s moving around so much, it sounds like that will allow for different creative possibilities, and different composition possibilities, every night.

Tyler: Right. In fact, one of the things that Iโ€™d recommend is starting early next week, go out at a certain time every evening and photograph this thing as it moves from night to night. Then you can composite all those photos together to create a multiframe exposure, or a time-lapse. Heck, if you do a really good job of this you could probably even create a movie of the comet moving against those background starsโ€”and itโ€™s going to be moving through some really neat stars.

Also, think about the focal length of your lens and what kind of field of view youโ€™re going to have. If youโ€™ve photographed the moon, how big does the moon look in your field of view, depending on what lens you use? Imagine the comet in a similar wayโ€”itโ€™s currently about the size of a full moon, but eventually will be possibly two or three times larger.

Comet 46P/Wirtanen, courtesy of Victor Ruiz, Siding Springs Observatory, Australia.

Chris: How about shoot locations? What national parks might be best for photographing Wirtanen?

Tyler: Youโ€™re looking for a combination of dark skies and clear skies. There are some wonderful dark skies all around the Great Lakes, places in Michigan like Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, but you can get some terrible weather up there right about now. So my suggestion would be to head to the clear, dry parks of the American Southwest. The best park will be Death Valley. And Great Sand Dunes could be really niftyโ€”to be there amongst the sand dunes, with the Sangre de Cristo Mountains off toward your east just as your comet is coming up.

The last comet I photographed was in December 2007, and I photographed that in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, amongst some of the ruins at night. Iโ€™d really recommend places in the Colorado Plateauโ€”pretty much any of those places with a good view toward the east and the Rocky Mountains when the comet is rising. That will give you a good opportunity to capture the comet against some interesting landscapes.

Chris: Itโ€™s been a great couple of years for astronomical events. Last year we had the solar eclipse, this year we have the comet. What might be coming up next year that photographers will be interested in?

Tyler: Thereโ€™s going to be a total lunar eclipse that comes along January 21. Everybody in North and South America should have a wonderful view. If you havenโ€™t seen the moon turn that wonderful dark blood-red as it goes into Earthโ€™s shadow, this is going to be a perfect opportunity to see and photograph it.

We also have a couple of solar eclipses for those folks who caught the eclipse bug from last year. There will be a total solar eclipse in southern South America on July 2. Youโ€™ve got to be in Chile or Argentinaโ€”the path of totality will be visible only across the Pacific Ocean and then over those two countries. Iโ€™ll be co-leading a trip in Chile for this eclipse, with a group called Betchart Expeditions, which partners with The Planetary Society.

Then there will be an annular solar eclipse happening right about Christmas 2019. An annular eclipse is when the moon is a little too far away from Earth, so it doesnโ€™t completely block out the sunโ€™s light. That alignment is perfect for getting a ring of fire visible in the sky. That will be visible in Singapore and across parts of the Indian Ocean.

Note: Weโ€™d love to see your photographs of 46P/Wirtanen. Feel free to share them in the comments section below, post them on our Facebook page, or upload them to Instagram and tag us @nationalparksatnight.

Chris Nicholson is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night, and author of Photographing National Parks (Sidelight Books, 2015). Learn more about national parks as photography destinations, subscribe to Chris' free e-newsletter, and more at www.PhotographingNationalParks.com.

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Meteors and Eclipses and Comets, Oh My!โ€”The Celestial Events of 2018

A happy new year to all of our readers! 2017 was pretty amazing for all of us at National Parks at Night. We led workshops at nine different locations in the United States and Iceland. We witnessed auroras, the total solar eclipse, meteor showers, and billions and billions of stars.

2018 is looking just as exciting. We are kicking the new year off with a blue supermoon in Biscayne National Park, celebrating both the Biscayne and Redwood National Park 50th anniversary with a group show that will feature our studentsโ€™ work at both parks in October, and will be offering 12 workshops including stops in Scotland, South Iceland and all along the Blue Ridge Parkway, to name a few. (Three workshops are sold out, but if you are interested in those, sign up for the wait list, as anything can happen!)

We hope that you join us for an adventure sometime soon. Whether youโ€™re coming with us or heading out on your own, there are as many reasons to photograph at night as there are stars in the sky. Shooting any night can be, and often is, spectacular, but there are also some special dates to get outdoors with your camera, as there are scores of notable celestial events to photograph in 2018.

You already know about many of these if you own a copy of our 2018 calendar, โ€œShots in the Dark,โ€ where theyโ€™re marked conveniently for you! As for any specific times mentioned, we gleaned that information by using our favorite photo-planning app, PhotoPills. The approximate times in the list below are based on the U.S. Eastern time zoneโ€”so if you live elsewhere, we recommend double-checking the times in the planner section of PhotoPills.

It also goes without saying that most of these celestial events are best viewed in dark sky locationsโ€”of which our National Park system has plenty! If you live in an area with high levels of light pollution and want to find darker skies, we recommend checking out Dark Site Finder.

With no further ado, hereโ€™s the list of great night sky happenings to focus your wide apertures on in 2018! (The first two of these have already passed, but weโ€™re including them for the sake of being comprehensive.)

January 2: Full Moon/Supermoon

Supermoon through 3 Bridges. Nikon D750 and Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 lens. 1/2 second, f/11, ISO 400. ยฉ Gabriel Biderman.

We immediately led off the year with a full moonโ€”and a supermoon, no less! A supermoon occurs when the full moon coincides with the moonโ€™s closest approach to Earth. The moon is super because it appears closer and brighter than normal. Your best bet for photographing it is during moonrise the day before (in this case, January 1) so that you can have better balanced exposure with the twilight foreground. Find and interesting foreground like I did in capturing the moon rising between the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Willaimsburgh bridges in New York City (above). (Rest assured, these tips will become useful again at the end of the month.)

January 3-4: Quadrantids Meteor Shower

There was no rest for the night photographer, as right after the full blue moon kicked off, the first meteor shower of the year hit! (Stay tuned for an article on how to photograph and process meteor showers, coming later this year.) The peak of the shower has passed, but you may be able to spot some sky streaks this weekend. (Itโ€™s good to note throughout this article that, just like with fall foliage, the peak times are the best for shooting meteor showers, but theyโ€™re not the only times. You should be able to find streaks in the sky for several nights before and after peak.)

Quadrantids is an above-average meteor shower with up to 40 meteors per hour at its peak, which lasts from the evening of January 3 into the early morning of the 4th. The field of meteoroids was produced by the now-extinct comet 2003 EH1, which was discovered in, you guessed it, 2003. The meteors appear to radiate from the constellation Bootes.

Best Viewed: after midnight

Moon Phase: waning gibbous 95% that will be up all night

Worth Shooting? This is a tough one. The full moon will make all but the brightest meteors invisible. If you are in a warm, dark sky locationโ€”why not? But in the north, we might sit this one out.

January 31: Full Moon, Supermoon, Blue Moon and Total Lunar Eclipse

Full Moon over Hudson. Nikon D700 and Zeiss 21mm f/2.8 lens. 2 minutes, f/11, ISO 200. ยฉ Gabriel Biderman.

OK, lots going on this night. We will be leading a workshop in Biscayne National Park (still a couple of spots left!), which will be a perfect location to view the supermoon rising over the forever horizon. We may even explore some reflecting moon trails as we explore this water world of a park.

A total lunar eclipse happens when Earth blocks the sunโ€™s light from directly hitting the full moon. During this time, the moon is in Earthโ€™s shadowโ€”no direct sunlight reflects off the lunar surface. However, the 0.12-albedo surface does catch some scattered light, which causes the moon to still be visible with a slight reddish hue. This is sometimes called the โ€œblood moon.โ€

The total lunar eclipse will not be viewable in Biscayne, but will be in many other national parks and wild spaces in large parts of the world. If you live in western North America, eastern Asia, Russia, Australia or around the Pacific Rim, youโ€™ll be in the path of totality.

February 15: Partial Solar Eclipse

Taking a bite out of the Great American Solar Eclipse. Fujifilm XT-2 and 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 lens. 1/250, f/8, ISO 800. ยฉ Gabriel Biderman.

If you live in Chile, Argentina or are planning a trip to Antarctica, this would be a fun day to be outside with a camera. This will not rival the total eclipse we saw in the U.S. last year; instead it will look like a bite is taken out of the sun when viewed with solar glasses and filters. But itโ€™s absolutely still worth shooting. (For advice about gear, techniques and safety when photographing an eclipse, see our free e-guide, โ€œHere Comes the Sun.โ€)

March 20: Vernal Equinox (Northern Hemisphere), Autumnal Equinox (Southern Hemisphere)

Winter is over and there will be equal parts of day and night โ€ฆ with the days slowly getting longer, boohoo!

March 31: Full Moon, Blue Moon

Full Moon through the Auroras, Iceland. Sony A7s and Zeiss 21mm f/2.8 lens. 15 seconds, f/8, ISO 25,600. ยฉ Gabriel Biderman.

Our second blue moon in the first three months of the year. This is unique, as is the interesting fact that 2018 features no full moon in February.

April 16: First New Moon of the Milky Way season

Youโ€™ll need to stay up late. Depending on where you are, the return of the Milky Wayโ€™s core to the night sky is reason to celebrate! It should break the horizon around 1:30 a.m. and hang around for three hours before the morning twilight erases the stars.

April 22-23: Lyrids Meteor Shower

Lyrids is an average shower that can have about 20 meteors per hour at its peak on the evening of April 22 and the early morning of the 23rd. The shower is produced by dust particles left behind by comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher, which was discovered in 1861. The meteors appear to radiate from the constellation Lyra.

Best Viewed: after midnight

Moon Phase: first quarter 50% that will set at 1:46 a.m.

Worth Shooting? Yes! With the half moon setting after midnight, the Lyrids could definitely put on a good show.

May 6-7: Eta Aquarids Meteor Shower

Eta Aquarids is an above-average shower that can have up to 30 meteors per hour in the Northern Hemisphere, and up to 60 per hour in the Southern Hemisphere! Its peak is on the evening of May 6 into the early morning of the 7th. It is produced by the dust particles left behind by the famous Halleyโ€™s Comet, which has been recorded since ancient times. The meteors appear to radiate from the constellation Aquarius.

Best Viewed: from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Moon Phase: waning gibbous 59% that will rise at 1:41 a.m.

Worth Shooting? Yes. With no moon to begin the night, you should be able to see the start of the show during clears skies. After 1:30 a.m., only the brightest of the meteors will be visible.

May 15: New Moon

The Ruins of Hovenweep. Hasselblad X1D and 30mm f/3.5 lens. Blend of foreground at 6 minutes, f/4, ISO 800 and sky at 23 seconds, f/4, ISO 6400. ยฉ Gabriel Biderman.

Welcome the Milky Way galactic core someplace dark, as it rises around 11 p.m.!

June 13: New Moon

Milky Way Arching over Centennial Valley, Montana. Nikon D750 and 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. Five-image panorama at 30 seconds, f/4, ISO 6400. ยฉ Gabriel Biderman.

Even better Milky Way core, as it will be up around 9:15 p.m.โ€”during nautical twilight in most of the U.S. Prime time of the year for the Milky Way arching shots!

June 21: Summer Solstice

Shortest night of the year. Boo!

July 13: New Moon, Partial Solar Eclipse (way south)

Under Sipapu, Natural Bridges National Monument. Nikon D750 and 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. 20 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 6400. ยฉ Gabriel Biderman.

The Milky Way will be high in the sky during twilight. Perfect for straight-through-the-sky Milky Way shots. (To learn more about the difference between this type of Milky Way photo and arching panos, see our โ€œFive Questionsโ€ blog post from last July.)

Also on this day is a partial solar eclipse for our friends in southern Australia and Antarctica.

July 27: Total Lunar Eclipse

Higher Rolling with the Blood Moon, Vegas 2014. Sony A7r and Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. 4 seconds, f/11, ISO 800. ยฉ Gabriel Biderman.

Visible throughout most of Europe, Africa, western and central Asia, the Indian Ocean, and Western Australia. (Visit the NASA website for more information.)

July 28-29: Delta Aqaurids Meteor Shower

This is an average shower, with 20 meteors per hour during its peak from the evening of July 28 through the early morning of the 29th. These meteors are produced from the debris left behind by the comets Marsden and Kracht, and they appear to radiate from the constellation Aquarius.

Best Viewed: after midnight

Moon Phase: waning gibbous 99% (essentially, a full moon) and will be up all night

Worth Shooting? Probably not. The full moon will obscure all but the brightest of meteors. (Though you can be sure weโ€™ll be on the lookout during our Blue Ridge Parkway workshop.)

August 11: New Moon, Partial Solar Eclipse

The August Core over Centennial Valley, Montana. Nikon D750 and 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. 20 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 6400. ยฉ Gabriel Biderman.

During this new moon, the Milky Way will appear high in the sky immediately as darkness falls.

This partial solar eclipse will be seen in parts of northeast Canada, Greenland, extreme northern Europe, and northern and eastern Asia. Best viewing will be in northern Russia with 68 percent of the sun blocked.

August 12: Perseids Meteor Shower

Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado. Nikon D750 and 15mm Zeiss Distagon f/2.8 lens. 234 images at 22 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 6400, plus a single exposure at 382 seconds, ISO 2000 for the landscape after moonrise. ยฉ 2017 Matt Hill.

One of the best meteor showers of the year, with 60 per hour during its peak on August 12 into the early morning of the 13th. These meteors are produced from the comet Swift-Tuttle, and they appear to radiate from the constellation Perseus.

Best Viewed: from darkness to morning

Moon Phase: waxing crescent 3%, but will have set by nightfall

Worth Shooting? Yes, yes, yes! This is our personal favorite meteor shower. Lots of meteors, new moon and comfortable temperatures. So fingers crossed for clear skies, and fire away!

September 9: New Moon

The Milky Way core will be visible for only the first three hours of darkness (will set around 11:30 p.m.).

September 23: Autumnal Equinox (Northern Hemisphere), Vernal Equinox (Southern Hemisphere)

Equal parts day and night (the moon and sun will be rising and setting around the same time)which could create some beautiful twilight photos.

Also, in the Northern Hemisphere, the nights start to get longerโ€”woohoo!

October 8: Draconids Meteor Shower

Draconids is a minor meteor shower which averages 10 meteors per hour during the peak of early evening on October 8. The meteors are produced by comet 21P Giacobini-Zinner, which was discovered in 1900. They appear to radiate from the constellation Draco.

Best Viewed: early evening, from 8 p.m. to midnight

Moon Phase: new moon 0.4%, and will not be visible at night

Worth Shooting? Yes. Even though it is a minor meteor show, no moon means that youโ€™ll see even the faintest meteors in a dark sky location.

October 9: New Moon

Milky Way core will be visible for 1 1/2 hours after astronomical twilight.

October 21-22: Orionids Meteor Shower

Orionids is an average shower that has about 20 meteors per hour at its peak from late on October 21 until early morning on the 22nd. The meteors are produced from the dust left behind by the prolific Halleyโ€™s Comet. They appear to radiate from the constellation Orion.

Best Viewed: after midnight

Moon Phase: waxing gibbous 91%โ€”essentially full and will be up most of the night

Worth Shooting? Yes. Even though the full moon will block the fainter meteors, the Orionids produce very bright streaks that should be visible throughout the night.

November 5-6: Taurids Meteor Shower

Taurids is a minor meteor shower that averages five to 10 per hour, and peaks on the evening of the November 5 into the morning of the 6th. They are produced by Asteroid TG10 and comet 2P Encke, and appear to radiate from the constellation Taurus.

Best Viewed: after midnight

Moon Phase: no moonโ€”the thin crescent will set about the same time as sunset

Worth Shooting? I wouldnโ€™t make plans around it, but if you happen to be in a dark location with clear skies, be on the lookout.

November 7: New Moon

Milky Way core will be visible for approximately the first hour of darkness.

November 17-18: Leonids Meteor Shower

Average meteor showerโ€”15 per hour during peak from the evening of November 17 until early morning on the 18th. Produced by the comet Temple-Tuttle, which was discovered in 1865. The meteors appear to radiate from the constellation Leo.

Best Viewed: early morning (before twilight) of November 18

Moon Phase: waxing gibbous 72%, setting at 1:36 a.m.

Worth Shooting? Yes, for the night owl. Factor in the bright moon not setting until 1:36 a.m. on the 18th, but youโ€™ll have between then and 5:30 a.m. to shoot the meteors. (These might add an interesting night-sky component during our black-and-white workshop in Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark that week.)

December 7: New Moon

No Core in the Haystack, Oregon 2016. Nikon D750 and 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. 30 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 3200. ยฉ Gabriel Biderman.

Milky Way core will not be visible during the night in the Northern Hemisphere.

December 12-16: Comet 46P/Wirtanen

It looks like we will witness the 10th closest comet in modern times! It should be viewable to the naked eye on December 12 as it reaches perihelionโ€”its closest approach to the sun. Look toward the bull constellation, Taurus, that night.

On December 16, the comet will make its closest approach to Earth, soaring by only 7.1 million miles away, and will be visible to the naked eye. Look toward the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters.

For more information, see this breakdown from the University of Maryland.

December 13-14: Geminids Meteor Shower

This is probably the best meteor shower for photography, with an average of 120 multicolored meteors during peak from the evening of December 13 until early morning on the 14th. The roaming meteoroids were produced by Asteroid 3200 Phaethon, which was discovered in 1982, and the meteors appear to radiate from the constellation Gemini.

Best Viewed: after midnight

Moon Phase: waxing crescent 36%, and sets around 10:30 p.m.

Worth Shooting? If you can find someplace not too cold and have clear skiesโ€”YES, YES, YES!

December 21: Winter Solstice

Longest night of the year!!!

Warningโ€”Northern Hemisphere nights start to get shorter after this.

December 21-22: Ursids Meteor Shower

Ursids is a minor meteor showerโ€”with an average of five to 10 per hour from the evening of the December 21 until the early morning of the 22nd. Produced by the comet Tuttle (discovered in 1790), the meteors appear to radiate from the constellation Ursa Minor.

Best Viewed: after midnight with your fingers crossed

Moon Phase: waxing gibbous 99%, and sets just before sunrise

Worth Shooting? Probably notโ€”with the full moon up the entire night, likely cold temperatures and not many bright meteors, Iโ€™d sit this one out.

Wrapping Up

Phew! That about sums up the top celestial events to photograph in 2018. I hope this inspires you to seize the night in the upcoming year!

As you do, remember that we love to see your night images! Feel free to share them on our Facebook page, or to tag us in Instagram. We always love looking, we will always respond, and we are eager to share in more and more conversations about night photography.

Gabriel Biderman is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He is a Brooklyn-based fine art and travel photographer, and author of Night Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots (Peachpit, 2014). During the daytime hours you'll often find Gabe at one of many photo events around the world working for B&H Photoโ€™s road marketing team. See his portfolio and workshop lineup at www.ruinism.com.

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Eclipse Lessons: What We Learned from Our Day in the Sun

Wow. That โ€ฆ was epic. Whether you experienced the solar eclipse of 2017 in the mountains or the cities, with a small group of friends or with the masses, or even just online, that was the most universally experienced eclipse ever!

As we slowly come down from the high of the event, we want to share our story with you.

All five of us here at NPAN witnessed the eclipse in different ways. Chris, Matt and I saw totality, and Lance and Tim took time out in their location to stare at the waning sun.

I planned a small, hands-on Adventure Series workshop around the event. We lived on a ranch at Exit 0 in Montana and then drove two hours to the remote wilderness to capture totality.

Matt collaborated with B&H and Atlas Obscura at a Total Eclipse festival in eastern Oregon and made the most of his two minutes by creating eclipse portraits during totality. And Chris probably did the smartest thing and simply shared the whole experience with his 4-year-old daughter, laying together on a blanket in the grass outside a zoo in Greenville, South Carolina.

Tim was leading a workshop in smoky Glacier National Park and guided the students not to shoot the blocked sun but instead to capture the unique rays of light from a minimal sun. And Lance, who had just recently moved to Vermont, took time out of his day to take it all in with his fiancรฉe.

In this post, Matt and I share how we prepared for our shoots, and the ideas we had for capturing and creating during the whole of the eclipse.

Gabeโ€™s Prep

Iโ€™m always looking ahead to unique celestial events that we at NPAN can share. When I first learned that the Great American Eclipse was going to be passing through an area I frequent, Montana, I knew I had to start planning!

As it turns out, I was invited to the rural big night skies of J Bar L Ranch in Centennial Valley. Located about one hour from the path of totality, I had initially planned to avoid the crowds and just shoot and share the eclipse at the ranch. When we posted the details of the workshop, we even downplayed the eclipse aspect because you never know with weather. However, we received several emails from โ€œeclipsersโ€ who told us that they would rather see the total eclipse in front of a pile of rubbish than a partial eclipse in the most beautiful place in the world.

So we changed the game plan and I started researching nearby locations in Idaho that would be in the path of totality, which I was able to scout a year ahead of time. My first thought was to go to Sun Valley and get close to Stanley, a small town smack dab in totality, But when I heard that this small town of 50 people was expecting 50,000 visitors, I starting looking for locations even more rural.

Figure 1. Idahoโ€™s Sawtooth Mountains. ยฉ Gabriel Biderman.

In the end I was guided by stormy weather and magical light. I was visiting the small towns of Arco and Mud Lake when an impressive storm drew me toward the Sawtooth Mountains (Figure 1).

I pulled off and drove down a dirt road to gain a better vantage point to shoot the rays of light dancing around the mountains. I knew I was in the path of totality and pulled out the PhotoPills app to confirm that the sun would be seen over the Beaverhead Mountain Range at the time of the eclipse.

Figure 2. PhotoPillsโ€™ VR overlay of the path of the sun over the Beaverhead Mountain Range.

Figure 2. PhotoPillsโ€™ VR overlay of the path of the sun over the Beaverhead Mountain Range.

It was important for me to have an interesting foreground, as I wanted to have our students have a wide-shot option when photographing the eclipse.

Mattโ€™s Prep

(Hi, Matt here!) I was a polar opposite to Gabe. Imagine that.

I wasnโ€™t really interested in photographing the eclipse stages before and after totality. Why? I am happiest shooting at night, and totality was what I was looking for. The heat was on to make a plan for those two minutes.

I love making night portraits. So I challenged myself to stage and shoot as many portraits as I could pull off during totality. I knew the exposure would be akin to end-of-dusk light levels. So I grabbed my Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art lens to make both the subject and the sun/moon combo a size that felt appropriate to me.

Figure 3. Night at Atlas Obscuraโ€™s eclipse festival.

We were set up in a field on a private farm in Durkee, Oregon, for Atlas Obscuraโ€™s eclipse event. I was hanging out with the B&H Photo crew, enjoying all the solar-equipped telescopes they brought to observe first bite and the looming totality.

The crowd was abuzz with anticipation (for the eclipseโ€”not for what I was doing.). I grabbed a speedlight and a Luxli Viola, and prepared to test.

Gabeโ€™s Practice and Process

As we discussed in our โ€œNPAN 2017 Solar Eclipse Guide,โ€ the most important thing you can do to prepare for the eclipse is practice shooting the sun.

Zoom lenses need constant monitoring to track the path of the sun in the sky. Solar filters take some getting used to looking through, as they darken everything but the sun. We practiced tracking for several days right before the eclipse. If you can practice during the same time of day, youโ€™ll get a feel for how high you need to track.

I found that the autofocus of the zoom lens did a good job, but because we were pointing directly above us at noon, my lens had issues with creeping. I had to gaff-tape down my zoom ring so that it would stay all the way zoomed out. Investing in a lens that locks its zoom at multiple focal lengths would be very wise.

Mattโ€™s Practice and Process

All of my practice is from years of night photography and flash portraiture. Iโ€™ve been shooting in dim light combining those two practices for a while, so I felt confident I could make it happen when the time came.

But it didnโ€™t stop me from thinking though the possibilities over and over while waiting. I did fret a little. But the Light Painting Party the previous evening had me feeling all sorts of good.

Gabeโ€™s Gear and Settings

My wide setup was the Nikon D750 with the Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 lens and the cardboard DayStar Solar Filter. My settings during the eclipse (not totality) were 1/125, f/8, ISO 800. I manually set focus at hyperfocal distance so that everything was sharp from 10 feet to infinity.

My telephoto setup was the Fuji XT2 and 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 lens, with the best filter holder system I have ever used, the Wine Country. Even with the dubious Amazon scare, I stood by my Lee Solar Eclipse Filter, as I had used it for many hours without any issues. My base settings were 1/250, f/8, ISO 800.

I wanted to simplify my shooting during totality as much as possible and set up both cameras to bracket. To capture the โ€œdiamond ring,โ€ I closed down to f/22 to heighten the flare, increased the shutter speed to 1/60, and bracketed as best I could. The light bursts were bright and quick and the bracketing worked out really well. The 1/2-second exposure gave me the best corona (see Figure 4) and 1/250 captured the Baileyโ€™s beads (Figure 5). But the most dramatic image was the flare from the diamond ring effect, which worked out best at 1/15, f/22, ISO 800 (Figure 6).

Figure 4. Corona. 1/2, f/22, ISO 800.

Figure 5. Baileyโ€™s beads. 1/250, f/22, ISO 800.

Figure 6. Baileyโ€™s beads, or the diamond ring effect. 1/15, f/22, ISO 800.

During totality I lowered my shutter speed to 1/15 and bracketed again. I should have also opened my aperture, but I was trying to keep things simple while running between two rigs.

The best exposures ended up being 1/15 and 1/30, as exposures at or over 1/8 tended to be too blurry with the rather rapid movement of the sun and moon. In hindsight, I should have opened my aperture to f/8 and kept my shutter speeds in the range of 1/125 to 1/250.

It was very important to put my camera in the highest burst mode, to shoot in RAW (of course) and to still bracket. Keep the trigger firing and take some time to take it all in.

Mattโ€™s Gear and Settings

I popped the CTO-gelled speedlight on a tripod and tested the output. Why CTO? Well, I wanted to shoot with Tungsten white balance and the flash should be neutral.

โ€œThis is night photography, if but for a moment.โ€
— Matt

I then grabbed the Luxli Viola and set it to 5000 K. I placed it lower than the speedlight, but on axis. Iโ€™ve been studying how cinematographers are making the shadows and highlights different color balances. So I wanted a cool shadow undertone from the LED light and neutral/warm from the flash. And the sky would look cool because of the Tungsten setting.

I revved up my Nikon D750 and Sigma 35mm with no filter. Why? Itโ€™s totalityโ€”this is night photography, if but for a moment.

I worked through a couple of test shots to get the sun/moon exposure while my first subject, John Faison, was making a few images for himself. I asked John to stand in front for a few darker frames at 1/125, f/6.3, ISO 200. Then I wanted some more corona and landscape for context, so I dropped my shutter speed down to 1/25 and then 1/3. (See Figures 7 through 9.)

Figure 7. 1/125, f/6.3, ISO 200

Figure 8. 1/25, f/6.3, ISO 200.

Figure 9. 1/3, f/6.3, ISO 200.

Figure 10.

We swapped places and by the time John shot two frames of me (Figure 10), our two minutes of totality were over. Wow. Talk about pressure!

I asked the next volunteers to step in and it was all over. :-(

Gabeโ€™s Experience/Emotion

Well, that was the quickest two minutes in my life! It was magical to have the sunlight change so drastically and to have hard โ€œnightโ€ shadows engulf us. Typically moonlight is very soft, so this was very surreal. I saw only the brightest stars and planetsโ€”it was a very silvery civil twilight.

The drastic drop in temperature brought an eerie chill and the only creatures close to us were flies that appeared out of nowhere when the lights came back on.

I did watch too much of totality from the back of the screen and really wish I had spent more than 15 seconds staring at the sky.

Mattโ€™s Experience/Emotion

I was laser-focused on one mission. OK, two. I forgot to mention I was running a time-lapse with a fisheye from ground level on Aperture Priority (see below).

Anyway, my one mission (I told myself) was to do something no one else was likely to be doing. I like to zig when others zag. Iโ€™m known for it. Itโ€™s curiosity. I love that feeling of, โ€œOh, this might not work.โ€ In fact, I told John and those who didnโ€™t get a chance to get their portrait done that very same thing.

I was listening intently to everyone around me. I heard the hush of wildlife. I heard the birds all speak up at once, then crickets. I felt the temperature drop and one of the scientists nearby exclaim in glee, โ€œItโ€™s 62 degrees Fahrenheitโ€”a full drop of ten degrees!โ€ I felt the mosquitoes rise up and eat me alive. I heard all the oohs and aahs of everyone marveling about all the stars in the sky behind us. But I saw none of it. I was on task.

Do I regret not enjoying the eclipse with my own eyeballs? Not at all. Because now I would be regretting not trying for something that was a pressure-based stretch goal. I tried, and I believe I succeeded. In fact, I got a diamond ring in my portrait. Pretty rad.

Gabeโ€™s Final Takeaways and Notes for 2024

I was able to share this experience with my dad as well as nine Centennial students, which was incredibly special. We were all alone among the mountains, and it would have been weird to experience it all by myself. Viewing it in a city would have been more of a universal gasp of astonishment, but I really appreciated the people I was with and the earth that surrounded us. We all promised to meet back up in 2024!

It was difficult to remain cool, calm and collected during totality. I totally forgot to turn on my 360-degree video camera, which would have been a unique way to capture the changing light and our reactions. Maybe next time we can work together and have each person be responsible for one way to interpret the eclipseโ€”that way we would be more focused and could share the many results.

Figure 11. Composite of 25 frames showing the full sequence of the solar eclipse. Nikon D750 with 14-24mm f/2.8 lens and DayStar Solar Filter. Each frame (except totality) shot at 1/125, f/8, ISO 800.

In the end, the close-up shots give you a closer look at all the incredible things that happen moments before, during and after totality, but after the rush of it all, Iโ€™m really enjoying the wider-view composite shot of all the sun phases over the scene (Figure 11).

I feel like I accomplished the standard takes on the eclipse and look forward to challenging myself for a new perspective in 2024โ€”or before!

Mattโ€™s Final Takeaways and Notes for 2024

I was very fortunate to be where I was, when I was. I wasnโ€™t originally scheduled to go to the festival, but a series of other things put me in a position to represent NPAN at Atlas Obscuraโ€™s exclusive event.

Iโ€™ve always admired the cut of their jib. Their focus on adventure, satisfying curiosity and generously sharing is right up my alley. And I met a host of like-minded people there. It was kismet and I would do it all over again exactly the same way.

Next time, however, I will bring about five cameras. That may be in Argentina in 2019 or 2020, or much of North America in 2024. I am hooked. That was a truly singular experience.

Did you photograph the solar eclipse? We would love to see your images in the Comments section below!

Gabriel Biderman is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He is a Brooklyn-based fine art and travel photographer, and author of Night Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots (Peachpit, 2014). During the daytime hours you'll often find Gabe at one of many photo events around the world working for B&H Photoโ€™s road marketing team. See his portfolio and workshop lineup at www.ruinism.com.

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT