View the QUADRANTID METEOR SHOWER

Do not forget that the first meteor shower of the year occurs tonight. I will be hosting an event at the stone barn starting at midnight, so that people can view the shower. The sky is supposed to be clear and the weather cold. So dress warmly, bring a chair. They will be coffee and hot chocolate and snacks available.
If you're interested in taking photographs and trying to capture a meteor. You need to bring a camera with the wide-angle lens, shutter release and a sturdy tripod. I will help you set up your camera so you can try to capture a meteor.

Hope to see you there.

Directions

Take the first right after the Field Station (Horseneck Road again) drive down and you will see the Quansett Nursery Sign on your right, just a short way down beyond on the right is the unpaved road into the stone barn.  There are signs.

 

Quadrantid Meteor Shower Gathering January 3, 2013

The next meteor show is the morning of Thursday, January 3, and since the Quadrantid meteor shower has a very narrow peak and the waning gibbous moon rise about the time that the meteors radiant is coming up. 

There will be a gathering at Allens Pond Stone Barn, Horseneck Road, Dartmouth, Massachusetts starting at midnight on Thursday, January 3.   Anybody that would like to come and view the show is welcome.  Coffee, hot chocolate and snacks will be available.  All you need is to wear warm clothing and bring a chair. 
If you are interested in trying to photograph the meteors, please contact me at mborn@photobee1.com  and I will  email you what equipment that you should  have and I will help you set up your equipment.

The Quadrantid meteor shower is capable of matching the  meteor rates of the better-known Perseid and Geminid showers.  It has been known to produce up to 60 or more meteors per hour.  Last year, before the clouds came in, it was a spectacular show.

QUADRANTID METEOR SHOWER

We left the house early this morning travel out and sees the first meteor shower of the new year.  Here is information about the meteor shower from the NASA site http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-msfc.

"The 2012 Quadrantids, a little-known meteor shower named
after an extinct constellation, will present an excellent chance for hardy souls to start the year off with some late-night meteor watching. Peaking in the wee morning hours of Jan. 4, the Quadrantids have a maximum rate of about 100 per hour, varying between 60-200. The waxing gibbous moon will set around 3
a.m. local time, leaving about two hours of excellent meteor observing before dawn. It's a good thing, too, because unlike the more famous Perseid and Geminid
meteor showers, the Quadrantids only last a few hours -- it's the morning of Jan. 4, or nothing..  Like the Geminids, the Quadrantids originate from an asteroid, called 2003 EH1. Dynamical studies suggest that this body could very well be a piece of a comet which broke apart several centuries ago, and that the meteors you will see before dawn on Jan. 4 are the small debris from this fragmentation. After hundreds of years orbiting the sun, they will enter our
atmosphere at 90,000 mph, burning up 50 miles above Earth's surface -- a fiery end to a long journey! The Quadrantids derive their name from the constellation of Quadrans Muralis (mural quadrant), which was created by the French astronomer Jerome Lalande in 1795. Located between the constellations of Bootes and Draco, Quadrans represents an early astronomical instrument used to
observe and plot stars. Even though the constellation is no longer recognized by astronomers, it was around long enough to give the meteor shower -- first seen no doesn't write good thing is what you do on Saturday in 1825 -- its name."

I decided we would view the show From Gooseberry, arriving there in the wee hours of the morning, with the temperature at 16°F in the wind chill down to around 0°F, just as I got out of the car and looked up and extremely bright meteor trail went over my head.

The night before, I set up my cameras, one with a fisheye lens and one with an 18 mm-105 mm zoom lens (sent to 18 mm).  The settings I used were manual exposure, manual focus, set at infinity, 30 seconds and ISO 800.  I also set the camera on time delayed so I could push the shutter button, and then they would be a delay before the shutter would open.

Night Sky

There were many faint meteor trails that occurred and I did capture some of them.  Because of the short exposure, I did not get star trails.

 

 

 

in this photo there is a meteor trail at around 9:00 and a second one up from the center going toward 2:00

I illuminated the trail in this photo

It was an enjoyable morning, despite the cold and I am looking forward to the next meteor shower, and hopefully it'll be warmer and that those sky will be as bright and clear as it was this morning.