After three meteor showers lit up the sky across eastern Australia in July, the Perseid meteor shower will peak 13 August, giving stargazers another opportunity to photograph the fireballs as they blaze across the sky.
But capturing a meteorite shower is not as easy as just taking out your iPhone and pressing the button.
The light show started on 28 July with the Piscis Austrinids and was followed by the Southern Delta Aquariids and the Alpha Capricornids which peaked on Saturday 30 July.
The next and most spectacular display will be the Perseid meteor shower, which peaks on 13 August.
The Astronomical Society of Victoria meteorite expert, Kon Stoitsis, said the best place to see the shower was outside of cities.
But capturing them is difficult. The photographer Jay Town said if you only have a phone it would be best to put it away and watch.
“You need a camera, a wide-angle lens and a tripod,” Town said. “You have to have all of those three, otherwise it won’t work.”
Getting a good shot can be tricky, but there are a few steps you can follow.
The first is using a wide-open lens to give you the biggest chance of capturing the shower. You also need to set up a long exposure, Town said.
“Start with a 20-second exposure,” he said. “Once you get over 30 seconds you’ll get movement in the normal stars and you don’t want that – you’ll have lines everywhere. You want the stars to be sharp and the meteorites to look like streams of light.”
A tripod will stop the camera from shaking, but when working with such high exposure, even pressing the bottom of the camera can make the image blurry, Town said.
“The easiest way around it is to use a shutter release which will mean you then don’t have to touch the camera, you could do it through your phone if you have an app on your phone, or you can have a physical release with a cable.
“Or hold your hand over the lens, push the button, and take it away – any movement will be over by the time you move your hand.”
The most important thing, he said, was “to take lots of lots of pictures”.
“And just hope,” he said.
