Leonid Meteor Shower 2018

A lone 'Leonid Meteor' moving across the Eastern Sky towards the Constellation Auriga. Canon 600D DSLR mounted on a Star Adventurer Equatorial mount. EOS 18-55mm. zoom lens at f=18mm. and F4.5. 30sec exposure at ISO1600. Background star field from a large number of 30 sec RAW exposures stacked using DeepSkyStacker freeware. Credit : Kurt Thrust

 " The Leonid Meteor Shower was predicted to reach it's peak activity in the early hours of the 18th of November. As this years shower was not expected to show high hourly rates I decided to give the Observatory staff the night off and man the camera myself. The night of the 17th and early hours of the 18th of November this year were exceptional for meteor watching. The skies were clear of cloud and by 1:00am. the Moon was out of the way in the far west. After setting up the mobile wide-field imaging rig and programming the intervalometer to take a long series of sequential 30 sec exposures, I settled down in a chair under a blanket to commence my lone meteor watch vigil. I sat waiting and watching for 4 hours and spotted only 4 fast moving Leonid meteors. In fact during the same period I saw five Taurid meteors which in every way were more beautiful to observe. One of the Leonids however, was quite spectacular and left a trail drifting in its wake. Unfortunately my camera's FOV (field of vision) was not sufficient to capture this 'fireball'. Over the four hours our Canon 600D camera captured 480 x 30 sec exposures and on only one was a Leonid meteor recorded" - Kurt Thrust acting CEO and current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory. 

For more information on the Leonid Meteor Shower follow the link:
Leonid Meteor Shower