Shut Out By Orionids

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This morning marked the annual Orionids meteor shower. Cometary shrapnel rockets into our atmosphere and burns up. Even though what’s burning is mostly around the size of a grain of sand, it’s a spectacular show.

Whatever. I stood outside nearly two hours and saw none! Disappointed? Absolutely.

Don’t get me wrong. It was still beautiful. The photo at the top of this entry is too small to show any detail. Please click here to see a larger version.

I met a friend at the edge of Lake Watrouss. It’s part of the reservoir system that serves Greater New Haven. I’ve photographed it many times.

Meteors burning over an idyllic lake sounded appealing.

I knew looking south over the water would bring in light from New Haven. The southern sky was much brighter that I expected. No good!

Instead we mainly pointed our cameras up. The sky still wasn’t as dark as expected. I guess the next time I’ll have to head to a much more rural spot.

My setup included a Canon 7D, Rokinon f/4 8mm lens, tripod and intervalometer. I could literally set it and forget it! Over 100 shots, mostly taken automatically.

We had a good time. We chatted while the cameras fired away. It would have been nicer had a meteor shown. Am I asking too much?

I’ve gone through my photos once. Maybe something will show up with a closer look. A dim meteor would still work for me.

7 thoughts on “Shut Out By Orionids”

  1. Hi, Geoff

    You may not like this, but, surprisingly, I did see one. I got up shortly after midnight and went outside. I live in an apartment in Waterbury very close to the Walmart Shopping Center so didn’t have high hopes of seeing anything, really. It couldn’t have been more than 30 seconds after I looked skyward that I saw a streak across the sky. I waited a while but nothing more.

    Since it was said that more would be seen between 2 and 5 a.m. I was out there at those times, too. But nothing.

    Well, at least, I saw one!

    A fan,
    Marge Shook

  2. My husband and son turned all the outside lights off and were out in our very dark, Clinton neighborhood for some time. I went to bed but they tell me this morning that they saw several. Sorry you were disappointed, Geoff.

  3. at 1:30-2:30 I stood in my driveway in Bristol – streetlight and lots of trees obscured some of my view. I moved around until the streetlight was blocked by a branch and just kept looking at Orion. I saw 3 decided it wasn’t worth it and went to bed. Yes disappointed and cold.

  4. I set up the camera in a way too well lit area with a poor view. I thought I’d set the focus to infinity. Nonetheless I did manage to get a couple images with a streak across them that looked meteorish.

  5. Geoff, I went out onto our back deck at about 12:15 sat down, and …wow the most spectacular meteorite streaked across the sky, it was in the NE direction and it seemed to have a pinkish tail to it, more colorful than any others I have seen.I stayed on the deck until about 12:45 and I saw 2 more in a similar direction although not as colorful, sorry you didn’t see any.
    I am here in the Gales Ferry area.

  6. I live in Beacon Falls and went to the Pent Road recreation area and the high school parking lot around 2:30am. Even though there were a couple lights on buildings, I still saw about 4 meteors.

    Or I was a lot drunker than I thought I was.

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