Aurora meets the Leonids

Tuesday i stumbled over a tip that said there was something interesting going to happen later that evening. Some kind of meteor shower... I thought; "well...i dont have anything better to do. And nightshooting is always exciting....so what the hell..."

I felt like the biggest nerd in town when i printed a map over the stars, since some website said i had to look for the star constellation Leo. Thats greek for me... The evening arrived and i went out in the woods. Looking at the map i realized there was no chance in hell i was going to understand what it meant. I just decided to wipe my ass with the map and instead go for good old luck.

I set up my gear. Tried to figure out a compo in the dark, which was almost imposiible with a lousy headlamp. And focusing...almost impossible, but i pulled it off by standing a couple of meters away from the camera and hunt until it finally found something on me to focus on.

The plan was to then take a shitload of shots for about an hour and hopefully get something. I first went for a vertical compo and started to shoot... Every now and then a shooting star flew across the sky, but not even close to where i had set up. And it was so random.. So i decided to switch to horizontal, just to increase the chance of getting something.

I started shooting...f4, around 30 sec shutter and iso 1600. On my first shot in horizontal a massive shooting star went straight through my frame. Oh happy days... And i also noticed a welcomed guest entering the frame...The aurora... I now knew i had at least one decent take, so i relaxed and continued for another hour. A few times a shooting star would fly across the sky and into my frame..

I then went home and started working. I immediately saw that the first horizontal shot was going to be the base for everything. I then scrolled through the rest of the 75 shots and found another 6 with shooting stars and used these stars in the baseframe. Simple as that...

Now, i know this is not an awardwinning masterpiece or something, but at least i got to document this happening, which i until 2 days ago had never heard of..

An ok documentation, i wish the snow had arrived. Instead i was stuck with a colourless foreground and nothing of interest. But i hope you enjoy...

And PLEASE! WHATEVER YOU DO....VIEW THIS ONE LARGE!!!

Have a great day!

-Arild-

Some facts to finish this:
From wiki:
The Leonids ([ˈli.əˌnɪdz] lee-uh-nids) are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Tempel-Tuttle. The Leonids get their name from the location of their radiant in the constellation Leo: the meteors appear to stream from that point in the sky. The 2009 display peaking on November 17 may produce more than 500 meteors an hour.[1][2][3]

Earth moves through the meteoroid stream of particles left from the passages of the comet. The stream comprises solid particles, known as meteoroids, ejected by the comet as its frozen gases evaporate under the heat of the Sun which begins to warm the comet as it comes within the orbit of Jupiter. A typical particle is no bigger than fine dust. The main source of light of a meteor is caused by the solar wind, which fragments and atomizes the dust,[4] and the resulting spray of microscopic debris collides with individual atoms of the atmosphere ionizing the air. The air molecules recombine and cool by giving off photons. Larger particles leave a stream of smaller particles and form a tail, which can leave a glowing trail in the atmosphere. Leonids in particular are well known for having such bright meteors. The meteoroids left by the comet are organized in trails in orbits similar to though different from that of the comet. They are differentially disturbed by the planets, in particular Jupiter (see also a full explanation by McNaught & Asher (1999)). The ensemble of the trails compose the meteoroid stream. Old trails are spatially not dense and compose the meteor shower background (a few meteors per minute), happening around November 17, but changing every year.[5] Conversely, young trails are spatially very dense and the cause of meteor storms when the Earth enters one of these structures. Usual counts during a storm exceed 1000 meteors per hour,[6] to be compared to the annual background (1 to 2 meteors per hour) and the shower background (a few per hour).